THE  SOUTHERN 
MOUNTAINEERS 


SAMUELTYNDALE  VILSONJXD. 


HOME  MISSIONS 
OP    THE 

PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCHU.S.A, 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 
SOUTHERN   MOUNTAINEERS 


From  "Frye's  Geography." 


By  courtesy  of  Ginn  &  Co.,  Boston. 


THE  SOUTHERN  APPALACHIANS 


THE    SOUTHERN 
MOUNTAINEERS 


BY 

SAMUEL  TYNDALE  WILSON,  D.D. 

PRESIDENT  OF  MARYVILLE  COLLEGE 

AND  STATED  CLERK  AND  OFFICIAL  HISTORIAN 

OF  THE 

SYNOD  OF  TENNESSEE 


LlTERATUBE  DEPARTMENT 

PRESBYTERIAN  HOME  MISSIONS 

156  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

1906 


COPYRIGHT.  1906,  BY 

THE  BOARD  or  HOME  MISSIONS 

OF  THK  PRESBYTERIAN  CHCBCH 

IN  THE  U.  8.  A. 


THE  TROW  PRESS,  NEW  YORE 


FOREWORD 

THE   home  mission  field  of  the  American 
Church  extends  over  our  entire  land.     It  in- 
t/t  eludes     city,     town,    village,     and    country, 
^  throughout  the  North,  the  South,  the  East, 
>.   and  the  West.     Every  division  of  this  wide 
^   field    is    intensely    interesting    to    the    loyal 
|    Christian.    No  other  part  of  the  field  appeals 
"*    to  the  heart  with  more  romantic  interest  than 
does  that  included  in  the  southern  Appalach- 
••     ians.      In   this   little  book  the   story  of  the 
M     southern  mountaineers  is  told  by  one  who  has 
§    been  all  his  lifetime  identified  with  them,  and 
loves  them,  and  has  been  their  ready  cham- 
pion whenever  occasion  offered.     The  Board 
is   glad  to  have  the  story  so  authoritatively 
and  sympathetically  presented  to  the  Church 
at  large. 


447943 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE     SOUTHERN      APPALACHIANS. 

ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  SYSTEM — APPALACH- 
IAN MOUNTAIN  SYSTEM — NORTHERN  AP- 
PALACHIANS— SOUTHERN  APPALACHIANS 
—  THEIR  SCENERY  —  CLIMATE — PROD- 
UCTS AND  RESOURCES  —  POPULATION — 
SECLUSION 1 

II.  THE  SOUTHERN  MOUNTAINEERS. 

A  COMPOSITE  STOCK  —  PRINCIPALLY 
SCOTCH  -  IRISH  —  OTHER  STRAINS  — 
SCOTCH  -  IRISH  EVOLUTION  —  "TRANS- 
PLANTATION OP  ULSTER" — ROOSEVELT'S 
TRIBUTE — THREE  CLASSES  OF  MOUN- 
TAINEERS: (1)  CLASS  ONE  Is  HELPING — 
(2)  CLASS  Two  WILL  HELP— (3)  CLASS 
THREE  NEEDS  HELP — MODIFICATIONS 
OF  THESE  CLASSES — "MOUNTAINEERS," 
NOT  "MOUNTAIN  WHITES"  ...  10 

HI.  THE  SERVICE  OF  THE  MOUNTAIN- 
EERS. THE  NATION'S  FRONTIERSMEN — 
ESTABLISHED  CHRISTIANITY,  PROTEST- 
ANTISM, DEMOCRACY,  CIVIL  GOVERN- 
MENT, AND  EDUCATION — SERVICE  TO  THE 
NATION — SHARE  IN  THE  REVOLUTION — 
KINGS  MOUNTAIN — WAR  OF  1812  AND 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

MEXICAN  WAR — CIVIL  WAR — SPANISH- 
AMERICAN  WAR — SERVICE  OF  INDIVIDU- 
ALS   22 

IV.  T  H  E  APPALACHIAN  PROBLEM. 
DIXIE'S  Two  PROBLEMS — BLACK  PROB- 
LEM— WHITE  PROBLEM — PROBLEM  AND 
ITS  PECULIARITIES:  (1)  AMERICAN,  (2) 
PROTESTANT,  (8)  WHITE,  (4)  COUNTRY, 
(5)  VARIED  AND  COMPLEX,  (6)  DELICATE, 
AND  (7)  URGENT 37 

V.  THE  MOUNTAINEERS'  REASON  FOR 
BEING.  How  THEY  BECAME  MOUN- 
TAINEERS: (1)  HUNTING  AND  FISHING 
ATTRACTIVE — (2)  ONLY  LAND  AVAILABLE 
— (3)  FEW  "OUTLAWS  — (4)  INFLUENCE 
OF  SLAVERY — (5)  MOUNTAIN  FECUNDITY 
— WHY  REMAIN  IN  MOUNTAINS?  (1)  FEW 
Do  MIGRATE — (2)  INERTIA  HINDERS — 
(3)  LOCAL  ATTACHMENT — (4)  AMBITION 
DORMANT — (.5)  TIMIDITY  DOMINANT — (6) 
PRECEDENT  LACKING — (7)  POVERTY  PRE- 
VENTS— So,  POPULOUS  MOUNTAINS  .  .  48 

VI.  THE  PROBLEM'S  REASON  FOR  BE- 
ING. PROBLEM  RESTATED — SOME  In 
Siatu  Quo  Ante — REASONS  FOR  PROBLEM: 
(1)  LACK  OF  LIVE  NEIGHBORS — (2)  OF 
VARIED  SOCIETY — (3)  OF  INCENTIVE  TO 
LABOR — (4)  OF  TRADE — (5)  OF  MEANS 
OF  COMMUNICATION — (6)  OF  MONEY — 
(7)  OF  SCHOOLS:  SOUTHERN  EDUCATION 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

BOARD'S  STATISTICS — (8)  OF  BOOKS — (9) 
OP  EDUCATED  LEADERS. — DEVOLUTION 
VERSUS  EVOLUTION  .....  60 

VII.  PIONEER  PRESBYTERIANISM  AND 
THE  PROBLEM.  PRESBYTERIANS 
WERE  DOMINANT  —  PRESBYTERIANS 
WERE  ACTIVE — FOUNDED  CHURCHES — 
FOUNDED  SCHOOLS — FOUNDED  COLLEGES 
— HELPED  FOUND  STATE — AND  WERE 
SUCCESSFUL — AND  THEIR  WORK  ABIDES  77 

VIII.  LATER  PRESBYTERIANISM  AND 
THE  PROBLEM.  CAUSES  OF  PRESBY- 
TERIANISM'S  PARTIAL  FAILURE:  (1)  DE- 
CAY OF  EDUCATION — (2)  TERRITORY  Too 
VAST  —  (3)  MINISTERS  FEW  —  (4)  No 
MISSION  BOARDS — (5)  MANY  MINISTERS 
WENT  WEST — BUT  WORKERS  DID  THEIR 
UTMOST — SOUTHERN  AND  WESTERN  THE- 
OLOGICAL SEMINARY — (6)  DIVISIONS  OF 
PRESBYTERIANISM — OTHER  DENOMINA- 
TIONS— SOME  UNCHURCHED  NEIGHBOR- 
HOODS— THE  POST-PRESBYTERIAN  AGE  .  85 

IX.  PRESENT-DAY  PRESBYTERIANISM 
AND  THE  PROBLEM.  How  SOLVE 
PROBLEM?  (1)  BY  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
TRADE — (2)  BY  PERFECTING  OF  PUBLIC 
SCHOOL  SYSTEM — (3)  BY  MULTIPLICATION 
OF  HOME  MISSION  AGENCIES — WHAT  is 
THE  MISSION  OF  OUR  CHURCH?  (1)  To 
PREACH  TO  EVERY  CREATURE — (2)  To 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

DISCHARGE  DEBT  TO  BRETHREN — (3) 
To  HELP  OTHER  DENOMI NATIONS — (4) 
To  EMPLOY  USUAL  METHODS — (5)  BUT, 
PRINCIPALLY,  TO  EDUCATE — Nor  USURP- 
ING FUNCTIONS  OF  STATE — SCHOOLS  THE 
KEY  TO  SITUATION — SCHOOLS  WILL 
TRAIN  THE  LEADERS — AND  PAY  DEBT 
TO  OTHER  CHURCHES — AND  STIMULATE 
THEM  TO  SIMILAR  EDUCATIONAL  WORK — 
THUS,  MORE  LIGHT 96 

X.  THE  DAY-SCHOOLS.  A  NOTABLE 
SCHOOL  SYSTEM — A  TRIPLE  SYSTEM — 
DAY-SCHOOLS:  THEIR  GENESIS — CON- 
DITIONS OF  THE  RENAISSANCE:  (1)  A 
MODEL  HOME — (2)  THE  TEACHERS'  CON- 
SECRATED LIVES — (8)  INSTRUCTION  IN 
SCHOOL  AND  HOME — (4)  BIBLE  STUDY — 
(5)  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION — RESULTS: 
(1)  COMMUNITY  AROUSED  —  (2)  OLD 
PEOPLE  HELPED — (3)  YOUNG  PEOPLE 
TRANSFORMED — (4)  USUALLY,  CHURCH 
ESTABLISHED —  (5)  TESTIMONY  OF  A 
VISITOR — BIBLE-READERS — STATISTICS  .  108 

XI.  THE  ACADEMIES  AND  BOARDING- 
SCHOOLS.  THE  STRATEGIC  COUNTY 
SEAT— PRESBYTERIAL  ACADEMIES— ACAD- 
EMIES AND  BOARDING-SCHOOLS — NEAR- 
LY THIRTY  SUCH  CENTERS — POLICY  AND 
PURPOSE  —  BUILDINGS  —  TEACHERS — A 
KENTUCKY  TRIO — A  KENTUCKY  QUIN- 
TETTE— AND  ANOTHER  TRIO — EAST  TEN- 
NESSEE ACADEMIES  —  FAVORED  OLD 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

NORTH  STATE  —  DORLAND  INSTITUTE  — 
MARSHALL  ACADEMY  —  BURNSVILLE 
ACADEMY  —  LAURA  SUNDERLAND  ME- 
MORIAL —  WHERE  THE  GRADUATES  Go  .  121 

XII.  THE  ASHEVILLE  SCHOOLS.  IDEAL 
LOCATION  —  RICH  INVESTMENT  —  THREE- 
FOLD OBJECT  —  (1)  THE  HOME  INDUS- 
TRIAL SCHOOL:  THE  HAND  OF  PROVI- 
DENCE —  THE  DEVOTION  OF  THE  FOUND- 
ERS —  THE  SCOPE  OF  THE  SCHOOL  —  THE 
SUPPORT  OF  THE  SCHOOL  —  THE  ANNEX 
THAT  MUST  COME  —  (2)  THE  FARM 
SCHOOL:  ITS  DEVELOPMENT  —  ITS  DESIGN 
—  ITS  RICH  FRUITAGE  —  (3)  THE  NORMAL 
AND  COLLEGIATE  INSTITUTE:  "THE  KEY- 
STONE SCHOOL"  —  ITS  PLANT  —  ITS  CLI- 
ENTAGE —  ITS  TEACHERS  —  ITS  COURSES 
OF  STUDY  —  "SYSTEMATIC  EDUCATION"  — 
RELIGIOUS  LIFE  —  THE  OUTCOME  .  .  134 


THE  APPALACHIAN  PROMISE.      A 

PREVENTIVE  MAY  CURE  —  PRESBYTERIAN 
ANTECEDENTS  —  RAPID    REHABILITATION 

—  READY  ASSIMILATION  —  STRONG  BODY 

—  STRONG  AND  KEEN  MIND  —  RESOLUTE 
WILL  —  SUPREME     SELF-CONFIDENCE  — 
SPIRIT    OF   INDEPENDENCE  —  INITIATIVE 
FOR    LEADERSHIP  —  SIMPLE     FAITH  — 
STRONG  RELIGIOUS  NATURE  —  WILL  SAVE 
MOUNTAINS  —  KEPT  FOR  MASTER'S  USE 

—  APPALACHIAN    PROVIDENCE  —  APPA- 
LACHIAN PROMISE  .  .  147 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

APPENDIX.  STATISTICAL  TABLES  OF  THE  PRES- 
BYTERIAN SCHOOL  SYSTEMS  OF  THE  SYN- 
ODS OF  KENTUCKY,  TENNESSEE  AND 
WEST  VIBGINIA  FOR  THE  YEAR  1905; 
ALSO  OF  THE  SABBATH-SCHOOL  MISSION- 
ARY DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  BOARD  OF 
PUBLICATION  AND  SABBATH  -  SCHOOL 
WORK  .  160 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  SOUTHERN  APPALACHIANS  .      .        Frontispiece 

OPPOSITE 
PAGE 

A  MOUNTAIN  FARM 16 

ON  THE  HILLSIDE 16 

BIBLE-READERS'     HOME,     JARROLD'S     VALLEY, 

W.  VA 32 

PIKEVILLE  COLLEGIATE  INSTITUTE,  KY.  ...  48 
HYDEN  ACADEMY  AND  INDUSTRIAL  HOME,  KY.  .  64 
SCHOOLHOUSE  AND  TEACHERS*  HOME,  FLAG 

POND,  TENN 80 

DORLAND  INSTITUTE,  HOT  SPRINGS,  N.  C.  .  .96 
LAURA  SUNDERLAND  MEMORIAL,  CONCORD,  N.  C.  112 
THE  FARM  SCHOOL,  NEAR  ABBEVILLE,  N.  C.  .  128 
NORMAL  AND  COLLEGIATE  INSTITUTE,  ASHE- 

VILLE,  N.  C.     .. 144 


THE 
SOUTHERN    MOUNTAINEERS 

CHAPTER    I 

THE     SOUTHERN     APPALACHIANS 

RELIEF  maps  of  the  United  States  show 
two  extensive  mountain  systems  traversing  the 
country  northward  and  southward  on  lines  ap- 
proximately parallel  to  the  Mississippi  river. 

In  the  West  the  great  Rocky  Mountains  and 

the  Sierras  lift  eleven  states  and  territories 

to  their  own  lofty  elevation, 

.,  *  A°C  ^  and  to  a  large  extent  decide 

Mountain  System  ,.    ,      .    , 

the  character  01  the  indus- 
tries of  the  populations  that  occupy  those 
states  and  territories.  The  course  of  empire 
has  pushed  irresistibly  into,  among,  and  over 
these  mountains,  until  now  almost  every  nook 
of  them  has  been  occupied  in  the  interests 
of  mining,  lumbering,  cattle-raising,  farming, 
manufacturing,  and  health-seeking.  That 
which  Daniel  Webster  once  referred  to  con- 
temptuously as  a  desert  has  come  to  be  re- 
1 


2  THE    SOUTHERN 

garded  by  the  world  as  an  exhaustless  store- 
house of  wealth  and  health. 

In  the  East,  corresponding  to  the  Rockies 
of  the  West,  there  stretches  another  less  mas- 
sive   and    yet    most     noble 
The  Appalachian     mountain        t        the  wort, 

Mountain  System 

counterpart  of  the  sister  sys- 
tem of  the  Occident.  While  second  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  the  Appalachians  are  not 
second  to  the  Alpine  system  of  Europe,  for 
the  southern  Appalachians  alone  have  a 
greater  area  than  have  the  Alps.  Geologists 
find  the  genesis  of  the  system  as  far  northeast 
as  the  hills  of  Newfoundland,  and  its  exodus 
among  the  hills  of  northern  Alabama.  Within 
its  limits  the  system  embraces  about  175,000 
square  miles  of  mountain  territory  as  against 
980,000  included  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  sys- 
tem, exclusive  of  the  Sierras. 

In  the  early  history  of  our  country  the  Ap- 
palachians were  looked  upon  as  the  natural 
western  limit  of  the  country  and  the  for- 
midable enemy  of  all  progress  sunsetward. 
As  population  increased,  however,  mountain 
passes  were  discovered  and  highways  estab- 
lished and  natural  and  artificial  waterways 
utilized,  until  the  Alleghany  barriers  became 
only  a  difficulty  to  be  overcome  and  a  tem- 
porary hindrance  to  predestined  advance.  Ere 
long  the  mountains  came  to  be  ignored  as  soon 


MOUNTAINEERS  3 

as  passed;  and  when  railroads  completed  the 
victory  of  transportation  and  made  easy  the 
passage  of  these  American  Alps,  the  people 
almost  forgot  the  mountains  and,  to  all  intents, 
the  Alleghanies  ceased  to  be;  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains  usurped,  in  their  turn,  the  place  of 
dread  and  importance.  But  the  Appalachians, 
in  slighted  state,  reigned  on  in  their  silence 
and  isolation,  awaiting  the  time  of  their  re- 
discovery. 

The    northern    Appalachians    are    not   so 
compact    or   continuous   or   extensive   as    are 

their  southern  sisters ;  conse- 
The  Northern  quently,  since  they  did  not 

Appalachians  -IT.       It. 

so  seriously  bar  the  prog- 
ress of  westward  emigration,  they  were  not 
so  much  dreaded  nor,  when  conquered,  were 
they  so  much  ignored.  Their  population  was 
for  the  most  part  assimilated  into  the  economic 
and  social  life  of  the  surrounding  country. 
The  development  of  the  coal  industry  in  the 
Pennsylvanian  Alleghanies  contributed  large- 
ly to  the  victory  of  society  over  the  mountains, 
and  even  founded  among  them  many  impor- 
tant and  prosperous  cities.  So  also  the  Green 
Mountains,  the  White  Mountains,  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  the  Catskills,  the  Hudson  Highlands, 
and  the  Pennsylvanian  Alleghanies  are  in  so- 
cial and  economic  and  political  life  either  part 
and  parcel  of  the  commonwealths  in  which 


4  THE    SOUTHERN 

they  lie,  or  are  so  much  overrun  by  health- 
seekers  and  pleasure-hunters  and  wealth- 
exploiters  as  to  be  perforce  largely  identified 
in  culture  and  interests  with  the  territory  con- 
tiguous to  them. 

The  problems  presented  by  the  northern 
Appalachians  have  been  in  the  main  satisfac- 
torily solved  by  the  people  of  the  states  in 
which  the  mountains  lie ;  and  good  schools  and 
the  other  agents  of  civilization  have  in  the 
main  equalized  the  culture  of  these  sections 
with  that  of  the  surrounding  territory.  The 
mountains  in  themselves  naturally  attract 
much  attention,  being  located  as  they  are  so 
near  the  great  centers  of  population.  There 
is  even  an  Appalachian  Mountain  Club,  organ- 
ized in  the  patriotic  cycle  of  1876,  to  preserve 
the  mountain  forests  and  resorts,  to  provide 
accurate  maps,  and  to  publish  scientific  data 
respecting  the  northern  Appalachians. 

The  Appalachians  south  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line  extend  from  the  southern  bor- 
der of  Pennsylvania  to  the 
The  Southern  northern  counties  of  Geor. 

Appalachians  ,     A1  ,  _, 

gia    and    Alabama.      They 

include  the  mountain  masses  and  the  enclosed 
valleys  and  coves  of  nine  states.  The  region 
they  occupy  is  about  six  hundred  miles  long 
and  two  hundred  miles  wide.  Geologists  and 
others  familiar  with  the  Appalachians  tell  us 


MOUNTAINEERS  5 

that  the  southern  highland  region  may  be 
said  to  contain  forty-two  counties  of  western 
Virginia,  four  of  Maryland,  thirty-five  of 
West  Virginia,  twenty-eight  of  eastern  Ken- 
tucky, forty-six  of  East  Tennessee  and  of  the 
eastern  border  of  Middle  Tennessee,  twenty- 
four  of  western  North  Carolina,  four  of  west- 
ern South  Carolina,  twenty-six  of  northern 
Georgia,  and  seventeen  of  northern  Alabama. 
The  total  area  is  101,880  square  miles.  This 
area  is  much  larger  than  that  of  England, 
Wales,  and  Scotland  combined;  almost  half 
as  large  as  Germany  and  France  respectively ; 
twice  as  large  as  the  Empire  State  of  New 
York;  and  as  large  as  all  New  England  to- 
gether with  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and  two 
Marylands.  Indeed  this  mountain  domain  of 
the  South  is  imperial  in  its  dimensions. 

The  scenery  in  the  Appalachians  is  sublime 
in  the  extreme.  The  mountains  increase  in 
height  as  they  fare  south- 
ward, until  in  Carolina  and 
Tennessee  they  tower  six  thousand  feet  heav- 
enward. About  twenty  of  them  rise  higher 
than  Mount  Washington,  while  the  tragedy- 
crowned  head  of  Mount  Mitchell  reaches  an 
elevation  of  6,711  feet  above  the  sea.  Their 
wooded  summits,  plateaus,  declivities,  and 
gorges  present  an  endless  variety  of  views 
that  in  many  places  rival  in  picturesqueness 


6  THE    SOUTHERN 

those  seen  in  the  most  famous  of  mountain 
ranges. 

The  flora  and  the  fauna  of  the  northern 
temperate  zone  flourish  as  if  in  a  national  ex- 
hibit of  a  zone's  riches.  Peaks  and  ranges, 
cliffs  and  crags,  cascades  and  waterfalls, 
laurel  glade  and  fern  brake,  lie  in  a  great 
silence  broken  only  by  the  song  of  many  birds 
and  the  shrill  stridence  of  insistent  insects. 
The  charm  of  the  mountains  enthralls  more 
and  more  those  visitors  that  are  familiar  with 
them,  until  at  least  some  sojourners  would 
fain  remain  within  their  magic  circle  forever. 

The  climate  is  equable  and  invigorating,  the 
ozone-laden  air  being  a  tonic  that  to  the 
initiated  renders  the  moun- 
tains an  ideal  health-resort. 
Health  is  in  every  breeze  and  gushes  from 
thousands  of  purest  springs  of  freestone  and 
mineral  waters.  The  section  is  fitted  to  be 
a  playground  and  sanitarium  for  a  great  na- 
tion, and  ere  long  will  so  be  recognized. 
Many  diseases  yield  to  the  salubrious  in- 
fluences of  the  air  and  water  and  quiet. 

The  cultivated  sections  in  the  great  and 
fertile  valleys  produce  liberally  the  usual 

crops  to  be  found  in  the  cen- 
Products  and  M  gtat      the  gta  ,      b  . 

Resources  ,     ,  JT, 

corn  and  wheat.    The  purely 

mountain  soil,  sandy  and  light,  yields  more 


MOUNTAINEERS  7 

reluctant  crops  of  corn  and  potatoes.  Fruits 
flourish  when  cared  for.  North  Carolina 
apples  are  famous  throughout  the  South. 
Hogs  and  cattle  are  produced  in  large  num- 
bers; and,  were  it  not  for  sheep-killing  dogs, 
the  section  might  be  the  greatest  sheep-raising 
country  in  the  world. 

The  natural  resources  of  the  Appalachians 
are  almost  limitless.  A  king's  ransom  is  in 
every  county,  if  it  were  only  collected.  The 
almost  unbroken  forests  are  rich  with  timber; 
and  the  earth  is  bursting  with  coal,  iron, 
copper,  zinc,  salt,  mica,  lead,  and  other  min- 
erals. Marble  and  other  building  stones  are 
found  in  exhaustless  store.  The  region  in  its 
scientific  aspect  is  one  of  richest  interest  to 
zoologist,  entomologist,  botanist,  dendrologist, 
geologist,  and  mineralogist ;  while  in  a  practi- 
cal way  it  is  of  most  alluring  attractiveness 
to  the  wide-awake  prospector  and  investor. 

The  population  of  the  region  is  collec- 
tively large  and  comparatively  small.  In  the 
two  hundred  and  twenty-six 
counties  that  may  be  said  to 
make  up  the  southern  Appalachian  region,  the 
census  enumerators  found  in  1900  as  many 
as  3,921,555  people.  This  total  exceeds  the 
combined  populations  of  the  commonwealths 
of  Montana,  Wyoming,  Colorado,  Arizona, 
Utah,  Nevada,  Idaho,  Washington,  Oregon, 


8  THE    SOUTHERN 

and  California.  Yet  this  large  aggregate  was 
scattered  over  so  vast  a  territory  that  the 
average  to  the  square  mile  was  only  thirty- 
eight,  making  the  teeming  mountains  after  all 
an  exceedingly  sparsely  settled  part  of  the 
Union. 

Collected  in  one  body,  the  mountaineers  of 
the  South  would  make  one  state  almost  the 
size  of  Ohio;  or  one  city  a  trifle  larger  than 
Greater  New  York;  but  the  13,305  square 
miles  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  con- 
tain as  many  inhabitants  as  do  the  southern 
Appalachians  with  their  101,880  square  miles, 
an  area  nearly  eight  times  that  of  Massachu- 
setts and  Connecticut. 

The  tide  of  westward  emigration,  as  has 
been  said,  flowed  over  the  southern  Appala- 
chians, but  ebbed  away  from 
Seclusion  ,,  .,        ,         •       n     j 

them  as  the  advancing  flood 

flowed  westward.  Domestic  emigration  and 
foreign  immigration  alike  pushed  on  toward 
the  magic  West.  The  Civil  War  served  also 
to  divert  attention  from  the  mountain  ranges 
of  the  South.  And  so  the  nation  went  on 
about  its  toil  and  expansion,  practically  ob- 
livious of  one  of  its  most  valuable  possessions. 
The  southern  mountains  were  for  a  long  time 
almost  as  much  a  terra  incognita  to  the  Ameri- 
can people  as  was  the  far  Northwest  before 
the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition. 


MOUNTAINEERS  9 

And  as  the  entire  section  rested  in  seclusion 
from  the  nation's  knowledge,  so  did  each  part 
of  the  purely  mountain  region  live  in  practical 
isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  section.  There 
were  no  pikes  or  well-built  highways;  often- 
times only  bridle-paths  led  from  settlement 
to  settlement  or  from  cabin  to  cabin.  There 
are  almost  no  natural  lines  of  travel  or  trans- 
portation, such  as  are  so  liberally  afforded 
in  the  northern  Appalachians  by  navigable 
rivers  and  lakes.  For  several  hundred  miles 
north  and  south  no  railroad  crossed  the 
mountains.  Even  at  present  there  are  many 
counties  that  are  not  entered  by  a  railroad. 
And  during  the  rainy  season,  travel  even  by 
horseback  is  difficult  in  the  mountain  recesses. 

Thus  the  mountaineer's  horizon  was  lim- 
ited by  the  summits  that  rose  on  every  side, 
shutting  him  in  from  the  rest  of  the  nation 
and  forcing  him  to  find  his  world  in  his  own 
small  neighborhood.  And  so  the  mountains 
have  merely  rested  in  what  Ruskin  would  call 
their  "  great  peacefulness  of  light,"  unknown 
and  unknowing  so  far  as  the  outside  world 
has  been  concerned. 


10      THE  SOUTHERN 
CHAPTER  II 

THE     SOUTHERN     MOUNTAINEERS 

LIKE  the  rest  of  Americans,  the  mountain 

people   are  of  a  composite  race.     There   is 

probably  no  unmixed  strain 

P08  of  blood  in  any  community 

Qtnrlr 

of  the  United  States.  While 
it  is  true  that  family  origin  is  not  so  important 
as  personal  character,  it  is  nevertheless  true 
that  heredity  has  much  to  do  with  accounting 
for  that  character,  and  merits  consideration 
from  every  thoughtful  student  of  history. 

While  it  is  undeniable  that  the  mountain 
people  of  the  South  are  a  composite  race,  the 

fact  remains  that  they  are 

probably  of  about  as  pure  a 
Scotch-Irish 

stock    as    we   can    boast   in 

America.  The  principal  element  is  Scotch- 
Irish,  as  is  indisputably  proved  by  history,  by 
tradition,  and  by  the  family  names  prevailing 
in  the  mountains.  All  the  region  about  the 
mountains  was  settled  principally  by  Scotch- 
Irish;  the  unbroken  traditions  of  the  moun- 
taineers agree  that  the  pioneers  were  Scotch- 
Irish;  while  the  names  of  the  people  are, 


MOUNTAINEERS  11 

fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  them,  Scotch  or 
Scotch-Irish.  It  may  be  added,  too,  that  there 
still  survive  most  interesting  phases  of  life 
and  idioms  of  language  that  are  Scotch  or 
Scotch-Irish  in  origin.  No  argument  based 
on  the  present  condition  of  the  mountaineers 
can  suffice  to  render  doubtful  this  proof  of 
the  prevailing  strain  in  the  mountain  stock. 

There  are,  especially  in  the  valleys,  nu- 
merous Huguenot  names  that  once  belonged 

to  the  noble  people  who  were 
Other  Strains  j  .         f         T?  i      .1 

driven  from  France  by  the 

revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  the 
dragonades  that  followed  that  revocation. 
Most  of  these  Huguenots  came  to  the  moun- 
tains by  the  way  of  Charleston  and  Savannah, 
the  great  Huguenot  ports  of  entry  for  the 
South;  while  others  came  with  the  Scotch- 
Irish  from  Ulster  where  they  had  taken 
refuge. 

English  and  German  names  are  also  fre- 
quent in  the  Appalachians,  as  is  to  be  ex- 
pected; though  the  German  names  are  not  of 
any  recent  immigration  but  rather  may  be 
traced  back  in  many  cases  to  "  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch."  Occasionally  the  student  of 
sociology  may  stumble  upon  a  community  that 
is  a  puzzle,  as,  for  example,  that  one  occu- 
pied by  the  "  Malungeons  "  of  upper  East 
Tennessee. 


12  THE    SOUTHERN 

In  this  composite  race,  then,  the  Scotch- 
Irish    element    largely    predominates.      And 
surely    that    fact   lends    an 

added  interest  to  the  study 
Evolution  .  ,  , .  . 

of  the  problem  of  the  moun- 
tains, for  there  is  no  sturdier  element  in 
American  character  than  that  contributed  by 
the  Scotch-Irish.  That  the  "  Plantation  of 
Ulster,"  which  took  place  as  long  ago  as  the 
days  of  James  the  First  and  Shakespeare, 
should  directly  and  prevailingly  affect  the 
character  and  possibilities  of  the  Atlantic 
highlands  of  America,  is  one  of  the  facts  that 
emphasize  the  value  and  the  romance  of  the 
philosophy  of  history. 

The  Irish  rebellion  against  Queen  Eliza- 
beth had  been  suppressed  with  relentless 
energy  and  the  confiscated  estates  of  Ulster 
were  peopled  by  the  so-called  "  Plantation  of 
Ulster."  Protestant  emigrants,  mainly  from 
the  Scotch  Lowlands  but  partly  from  London 
itself,  at  the  command  of  King  James  took 
the  places  of  the  evicted  Irish,  and  established 
the  most  intensely  Protestant  section  of  the 
British  dominion.  Scotch  the  colonists  en- 
tered, and  Scotch  they  remained  in  blood,  for 
intermarriage  with  the  Romanists  was  pro- 
hibited by  law  and  by  religion;  but  Scotch- 
Irish  they  became,  as  we  Americans  call  them, 
in  consideration  of  their  Irish  home. 


MOUNTAINEERS  13 

At  first  they  prospered  greatly;  but  as 
early  as  1633  England  began  to  maltreat 
them,  violating  all  her  pledges  and  forfeiting 
all  her  claims  to  their  loyalty  by  a  policy  of 
perfidy  and  persecution.  The  English  State 
spoiled  the  Ulster  yeomanry,  and  the  English 
Church  cropped  the  ears  of  the  non-conform- 
ing Presbyterians.  But  just  as  all  of  Laud's 
emissaries  and  Claverhouse's  dragoons  could 
not  force  the  Covenanters  in  old  Scotland  to 
conform  to  Episcopacy,  so  were  all  the  acts 
and  agents  of  Parliament  unable  to  coerce  the 
Scotch-Irish  cousins  of  the  Covenanters  in 
their  Ulster  home.  But  so  unbearable  did 
their  position  become  that  there  occurred  what 
Dr.  Mclntosh  called  a  "  Transplantation  of 
Ulster  "  to  America  and  religious  freedom. 
Three  hundred  thousand  of  them  found  their 
way  to  America  in  search  of  liberty  of  wor- 
ship. And  in  the  New  World,  this  prolific 
race  became  a  nation-founding  people.  Their 
annals  have  been  recorded  by  many  historians 
and  their  achievements  have  made  imperish- 
able their  history. 

They  landed  at  Boston,  and  Philadelphia, 
and  Charleston,  and  leaving  behind  them  the 

sea-coast    and    the    colonies 
"  Transplantation  that  had  thdr  established  re. 

of  Ulster"  ...         .,          ,  j  •  i      j 

hgions,  they  advanced  inland 

to    form   a   second   tier    of   colonies.      From 


14  THE    SOUTHERN 

Pennsylvania  they  pressed  southward  down 
the  Shenandoah  Valley  and  under  the  Blue 
Ridge  till  they  spread  out  southeastward  to 
meet  the  Charleston  immigrants,  or  pushed 
down  southwestward  past  Abingdon  into  the 
valley  of  East  Tennessee  and  up  the  trail  of 
Daniel  Boone  into  Kentucky.  As  they  ad- 
vanced they  took  possession  of  the  mountains 
and  valleys  of  the  Appalachians. 

The  gravestones  in  eastern  Pennsylvania 
and  Virginia  and  East  Tennessee  mark  the 
successive  migrations  of  some  strong  old  Pres- 
byterian families.  These  immigrants  brought 
with  them  their  Scotch-Irish  convictions  and 
characteristics  branded  into  them  by  the  fires 
of  persecution.  Their  invasion  of  the  moun- 
tains began  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

In  the  "  Winning  of  the  West  "  Mr.  Roose- 
velt pays  the  following  tribute  to  the  Scotch- 
Irish  pioneers :  "  The  back- 
woodsmen   were   Americans 
Tribute  ,      ,  . 

by  birth  and  parentage,  and 

of  mixed  race ;  but  the  dominant  strain  in  their 
blood  was  that  of  the  Presbyterian  Irish — 
the  Scotch-Irish  as  they  were  often  called. 
Full  credit  has  been  awarded  the  Roundhead 
and  the  Cavalier  for  their  leadership  in  our 
history;  nor  have  we  been  altogether  blind  to 
the  deeds  of  the  Hollander  and  the  Hugue- 


MOUNTAINEERS  15 

not;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  we  have  wholly 
realized  the  importance  of  the  part  played 
by  that  stern  and  virile  people,  the  Irish, 
whose  preachers  taught  the  creed  of  Knox  and 
Calvin.  These  Irish  representatives  of  the 
Covenanters  were  in  the  West  almost  what 
the  Puritans  were  in  the  Northeast,  and  more 
than  the  Cavaliers  were  in  the  South.  Min- 
gled with  the  descendants  of  many  other 
races,  they  formed  the  kernel  of  the  dis- 
tinctively and  intensely  American  stock  who 
were  the  pioneers  of  our  people  in  their  march 
westward." 

A  century  and  a  half  have  passed  away 
and    the    men   of   the   mountains   of   to-day 

are  the  descendants  of  some 
Three  Classes  of      of   those   gterli        pioneers. 

Mountaineers  „,        ,          ,    , ,  f      , 

They  have  held  lonely  state 

for  several  generations  in  their  Appalachian 
homes ;  but  they  are  still  there  to  give  account 
of  themselves,  and  to  face  the  providential 
future.  There  have  developed  among  these 
dwellers  in  the  mountains  three  distinct 
classes,  that  must  be  recognized  by  every  ju- 
dicious student  of  their  history. 

(1)   There  are  the  large  numbers  of  them 
that  have  occupied  the  fer- 
tile and  extensive  valleys  of 
the    Shenandoah    and    East 
Tennessee,  and  other  rich  valleys   and  pla- 


16  THE    SOUTHERN 

teaus,  and  have  established  centers  of  trade 
and  commerce  that  have  developed  such  pros- 
perous cities  and  towns  as  Chattanooga,  Knox- 
ville,  Johnson  City,  Bristol,  Asheville,  Salem, 
Roanoke,  Lexington,  Stanton,  and  Harrison- 
burgh.  These  mountaineers,  or  rather  valley- 
dwellers,  have  to  deal  only  with  such  ques- 
tions as  affect  other  intelligent  sections  of  our 
land.  They  send  out  missionaries  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  and  have  as  rich  and  pure  a  life 
as  have  any  urban  or  country  people  of  our 
southland.  They  outnumber  the  other  two 
classes  combined.  To  apply  to  them  any 
hasty  generalizations  suggested  by  a  study  of 
the  third  class  is  simply  unpardonable. 

(2)   Away  from  these  centers  of  wealth  or 
competence,  and  culture,  and  refinement,  there 

are  two  other  classes  more 
Class  Two  Will  flffected  by  their  mountain 

environment  than  are  these 
others  that  merely  live  in  sight  of  the  moun- 
tains or  in  highland  communities  that  are 
"  lowland  "  in  their  development.  There  are, 
first,  the  true,  worthy  mountaineers  that  de- 
serve far  more  of  praise  than  of  dispraise. 
While  their  isolated  and  hard  life,  remote 
from  the  centers  of  culture,  has  contracted 
their  wants  and  the  supply  of  those  wants, 
and  has  forced  them  to  do  without  a  multitude 
of  the  "  necessities  "  and  conveniences  and 


A  MOUNTAIN  FARM 


ON  THE  HILLSIDE 


MOUNTAINEERS  17 

luxuries  that  seem  indispensable  to  many 
other  people  of  the  twentieth  century,  they 
have  kept  that  which  is  really  worth  while, 
namely,  their  virility  and  force  of  character. 

The  fact  is  that  Nature,  in  accordance  with 
her  marvelous  method  of  compensations,  has 
endowed  these  hardy  mountaineers  with  some 
sterner  qualities  in  lieu  of  the  more  Chester- 
fieldian  ones  of  more  favored  society;  quali- 
ties that  render  them  in  some  respects 
stronger  and  more  resourceful  than  their  more 
pampered  kinsmen  of  the  valley  or  the  plain. 
They  have  escaped  many  of  the  vices  and 
follies  that  are  sapping  the  life  of  mod- 
ern society.  They  have  nerves,  in  this  day 
of  neurasthenia  and  neuremia.  They  know 
something  of  all  the  necessary  arts,  in  these 
days  when  centralized  labor  gives  each  work- 
man only  a  part  of  one  art  to  which  to  apply 
himself. 

The  mountaineer  of  this  class  eats  what  he 
raises,  and  applies  to  the  store  for  only  coffee 
and  sugar  to  supplement  what  his  acres  pro- 
duce. He  does  his  own  horseshoeing,  car- 
pentering, shoemaking,  and  sometimes  he 
weaves  homespun.  He  is  the  most  hospitable 
host  on  earth  and  heartily  enjoys  his  guest, 
providing  that  guest  has  the  courtesy  to  show 
his  appreciation  of  what  is  offered  him.  His 
honesty  coexists  with  a  native  shrewdness 


18  THE    SOUTHERN 

that  is  sometimes  a  revelation  to  the  unscru- 
pulous visitor  that  would  take  advantage  of 
him  in  a  trade.  He  is  usually  amply  able  to 
take  care  of  himself.  Indeed  no  American 
has  a  livelier  native  intelligence. 

To  speak  of  this  class  of  mountaineers  as 
meriting  patronizing  disdain  is  to  show  one- 
self to  be  a  most  superficial  observer.  Many 
of  these  men  of  the  mountains  do  perhaps 
need  much  that  can  be  given  from  without 
the  Appalachians,  but  they  have  a  reserve 
strength  that,  when  aroused,  will  speedily 
prove  them  the  peers  of  any  people. 

(8)  There  is  a  third  and  much  smaller  class 
of  mountaineers  of  which  not  so  much  good 

can  be  said.  They  corre- 
Class  Three  Needs  gpond  to  while  entirdy  dif_ 

ferent  from,  that  peculiar 
and  pitiable  lowland  class  of  humanity  that 
was  one  of  the  indirect  products  of  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery — "  the  poor  whites  "  or 
"  mudsills,"  as  they  used  to  be  called.  They 
are  the  comparatively  few,  who  are  very  in- 
correctly supposed  by  many  readers  of  maga- 
zine articles  to  be  typical  of  the  entire  body 
of  southern  mountaineers.  By  this  mistaken 
supposition  a  mighty  injustice  is  done  to 
a  very  large  majority  of  the  dwellers  in  the 
Appalachians.  As  fairly  judge  England  by 
"Darkest  England";  or  London  by  White- 


MOUNTAINEERS  19 

chapel;  or  New  York  by  the  slums;  or  any 
community  by  the  submerged  tenth. 

This  third  class  consists  of  the  drift,  the 
flotsam  and  jetsam  that  are  cast  up  here  and 
there  among  the  mountains.  They  are  the 
shiftless,  ambitionless  degenerates,  such  as 
are  found  wherever  men  are  found.  Usually 
they  own  little  or  no  land  and  eke  out  a 
precarious  existence,  as  only  a  beneficent 
Providence  that  cares  for  the  birds  and  other 
denizens  of  the  forest  could  explain. 

The  proportion  of  Scotch-Irish  names  may 
not  be  so  great  among  these  people,  but  many 
such  names  are  found  among  them.  This 
class  would  be  a  very  hopeless  one  were  it 
not  for  a  quality  that  will  be  referred  to  again 
— namely,  the  fact  that  it  can  be  made  over 
in  one  generation. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that,  as  in  all 
classifications  of  men  on  the  basis  of  char- 
acter and  condition,  there 

are  many  gradations  among 
These  Classes  .,  •,  i  ••  . 

these  three  classes;  and,  in- 
deed, that  the  classes  themselves  merge  into 
one  another,  so  that  at  times  it  is  impossible 
to  say  just  where  one  ends  and  another  be- 
gins. But  why  be  too  nice  in  determining 
metes  and  bounds?  Is  there  not  even  in  the 
great  metropolis  a  slum  problem,  and  is  there 
not  a  Fifth  Avenue  problem — both  with  in- 


20  THE    SOUTHERN 

determinate  boundaries  ?  The  worthiest  ques- 
tion anyone  can  ask  himself  is:  How  can  I 
best  help  any  brother  man  of  mine,  of  any 
rank  and  race,  submerged  or  non-submerged, 
to  realize  his  high  calling  in  Christ  Jesus  ? 

A  nomenclature  that  is  objectionable  to  the 
persons  named  should,  in  courtesy,  be  modi- 
fied to  remove  all  unneces- 
"Mountaineers,"  offense.     Some  writers 

not  "  Mountain        ,  .   .     .,     ,    ,..    r 

_...,     „  have  gotten  into  the  habit  ot 

calling  us  modern  Appa- 
laches  "  mountain  whites,"  a  term  that  implies 
peculiarity  and,  inferentially,  inferiority.  We 
are  not  deeply  in  love  with  that  nomenclature. 
It  sounds  too  much  like  "  poor  white  trash," 
the  most  opprobrious  term  known  in  the 
South.  Fancy  how  it  would  sound  to  hear 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Buckeye  State  spoken 
of  as  "  Ohio  whites  "  !  They  call  themselves 
Ohioans,  and  we  call  ourselves  "  southern 
mountaineers  "  or  "  Highlanders,"  and  of  that 
name  we  are  humbly  proud.  There  is  no  evil 
hint  in  the  word  mountaineer  in  the  Appala- 
chians, but  rather  the  reverse — an  honorable 
ring.  Better  use  no  class  name  at  all,  if 
possible;  but  if  one  must  be  used,  let  it  be 
a  generous  one. 

A  letter  was  not  long  since  received  at 
a  mountain  post-office  addressed,  "  To  the 
Teacher  of  the  Mountain  White  School."  Put 


MOUNTAINEERS  «1 

yourself  in  the  place  of  the  proud-spirited 
people  of  that  village,  and  you  can  the  better 
appreciate  the  fact  that  the  thoughtlessly  ad- 
dressed letter  was  of  no  help  whatever  to  the 
teacher. 

The  ancestors  of  the  mountaineers  left 
Europe  in  search  of  a  land  where  a  man  might 
be  "  a  man  for  a'  that,"  and  the  descendants 
of  those  ancestors  are  jealous  of  their  Ameri- 
can peerage.  They  are  courteous  only  to  the 
courteous.  They  can  endure  no  "  I-am- 
greater-than-thou  "  air.  Surely  they  have  a 
right  to  expect  of  their  friends  the  courtesy 
of  an  acceptable  designation  and  the  avoidance 
of  what  is  to  them  an  objectionable  epithet. 
They  are  mountaineers  or  highlanders,  and 
never  "  mountain  whites." 


22  THE    SOUTHERN 


CHAPTER    III 

THE     SERVICE     OF     THE     MOUNTAINEERS 

IP  we  take  the  term  southern  mountaineers 
in  its  broadest  extent,  all  must  agree  that  the 
service  rendered  the  nation  by  the  moun- 
taineers of  the  South  has  been  a  notable  one. 

They  conquered  the  Alps  beyond  which  un- 
told millions  of  later  compatriots  were  to  find 
their  fruitful  Italy.  It  was,  indeed,  no  small 
service  that  Boone,  and  Robertson,  and  Bean, 
and  Sevier,  and  the  Shelbys  lent  the  strug- 
gling colonies  and  later  the  infant  republic, 
by  pressing  backward  the  long-time  frontiers 
until  those  frontiers  practically  vanished  in 
the  sunset  West. 

As  backwoodsmen,  clad   in  buckskin,  and 

bearing  their  trusty  rifles,  the  pioneers  took 

their    lives    in    their   hands 

and  scaled  the  mighty  bar- 
Frontiersmen  ,       XT 

riers  that  Nature  had  piled 

before  them,  and  braved  wild  beast  and  wilder 
Indian,  and  defied  the  dread  of  unknown  evils 
in  an  unknown  wilderness.  What  we  pass  in 
review  in  a  day  cost  them  the  efforts  of  the 


MOUNTAINEERS  23 

best  part  of  a  lifetime.  Their  days  were 
spent  in  arduous  toil,  and  their  nights  were 
too  often  wasted  in  anxious  vigils.  The  an- 
nals of  the  frontiersmen  are  full  of  the  stories 
of  daring  exploits  and  uncomplaining  en- 
durance. 

Such  service  was  the  cost  that  civilization 
pays  for  new  conquests,  but  it  was  paid  not 
by  the  salaried  emissaries  of  an  organized 
government,  nor  by  the  subsidized  forces  of 
great  trading  companies,  but  by  individuals 
that  went  always  at  their  own  charges,  and 
sometimes  at  the  cost  of  all  things ;  more  often 
than  not,  hindered  rather  than  encouraged  by 
the  unappreciative  governments  they  had  left 
behind  them  when  they  plunged  into  the 
depths  of  the  forest. 

They  took  with  them  the  Bible  and  Protes- 
tant Christianity,  and  established  their  heredi- 
tary faith  in  every  district 
Established  of  the  mountains  There  is 

Christianity  .    ,, ,  ,..          ..  ., 

no   infidelity   native   to   the 

Appalachians.  An  infidel  is  an  imported 
monstrosity.  The  only  heresy  is  that  of  con- 
duct. Men  believe  in  the  Bible  as  the  only 
infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practise.  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,"  when  once  ascertained,  is  the 
end  of  all  their  frequent  theological  con- 
troversies. 

The  legends   of    Londonderry    may   have 


24  THE    SOUTHERN 

faded  from  the  memory,  but  the  Orangemen 
of  Ulster  are  not  more  inveterate  foes  of 

Romanism  than  are  the 
Established  ,,  ,  .  A 

southern  mountaineers.  A 
Protestantism 

traveler  in  the  Blue  Ridge 

stopped  at  a  cabin  for  a  gourdful  of  water. 
As  the  mistress  of  the  cabin,  "  on  hospitable 
thoughts  intent,"  was  bringing  the  water,  a 
little  child  clung  to  her  skirts  and  hindered 
her.  In  her  annoyance  she  reproved  the  child, 
and  in  a  warning  voice  said,  "  You  must  be 
good  or  Clavers  will  get  you."  Thus  has  the 
once-dreaded  name  of  Claverhouse  survived 
as  a  bogie  among  those  that  are  unfamiliar 
with  the  pages  of  history.  In  somewhat  the 
same  way  has  a  deep-seated  hatred  of  Roman 
Catholicism  been  inherited  from  the  past. 
Strange  to  say,  Rome  has  as  yet  made  no 
effort  to  win  the  mountain  people;  she  either 
overlooks  them  or  deems  them  an  unpromising 
field  of  proselytism. 

~~  Mr.  Fiske,  in  his  "  Old  Virginia  and  her 
Neighbors,"    tells    of    a    great    service    ren- 
dered by  the  Scotch-Irish  of 
Established  the  AppalachianS-    He  says . 

Democracy  ,   .  ', 

In    a    certain    sense    the 

Shenandoah  Valley  and  adjacent  Appalachian 
region  may  be  called  the  cradle  of  modern 
democracy.  In  that  rude  frontier  society  life 
assumed  many  new  aspects,  old  customs  were 


MOUNTAINEERS  25 

forgotten,  old  distinctions  abolished,  social 
equality  acquired  even  more  importance  than 
unchecked  individualism.  .  .  .  This  phase  of 
democracy,  which  is  destined  to  continue  so 
long  as  frontier  life  retains  any  importance, 
can  nowhere  be  so  well  studied  in  its  begin- 
nings as  among  the  Presbyterian  population 
of  the  Appalachian  region  in  the  eighteenth 
century." 

/Out  of  the  chaos  of  individualism,  the 
frontiersmen  soon  evolved  all  the  necessary 

elements    of    civil    govern- 
Established  ment      Jn  m  laceg  th 

Civil  Government    c        •,    ,    ,  j        , 

rounded  law  and   order  as 

substantially  as  they  exist  anywhere  in  the 
states.  In  some  sections  they  introduced  a 
good  observance  of  the  Sabbath — a  better  one 
than  is  now  to  be  found  in  most  of  the  cities 
of  our  land.  There  are  worthy  citizens  in  the 
remotest  coves  that  do  not  hunt  on  the  Sabbath, 
even  at  the  present  day;  and  the  author  re- 
calls one  instance  where  the  people  of  a  very 
mountainous  region  discussed  the  advisability 
of  using  mob  law  to  rid  their  neighborhood 
of  an  intruder  from  another  country,  who,  de- 
spite their  protests,  persisted  in  hunting  on 
the  Sabbath  day.  Another  mountaineer  apolo- 
gized, on  his  own  initiative,  for  having  been 
out  with  his  team  after  midnight  of  Saturday 
night,  justifying  himself  on  the  good  old 


26  THE    SOUTHERN 

Shorter  Catechism  ground  that  his  work  was 

one   of    "  necessity    and   mercy."      In   many 

places,  however,  the  Sabbath  is  in  as  extreme 

peril  as  it  is  in  our  great  cities. 

The   fatal  mistake  of  the   pioneers,   if   it 

was  not  in  many  cases  an  unavoidable  neces- 
sity, was  their  allowing  the 

Established  hardships  of  their  lot  to  pre 

Education  . 

vent  them  from  giving  their 

children  as  good  an  education  as  they  them- 
selves had  enjoyed.  As  Mr.  Roosevelt  in- 
vestigated the  early  documents  that  deal  with 
the  settlement  of  the  Alleghany  frontier,  he 
noted  the  absence  of  signatures  made  by  mere 
signs  or  marks.  In  1776  out  of  one  hundred 
and  ten  pioneers  of  the  Washington  District 
who  signed  a  petition  to  be  annexed  to  North 
Carolina,  only  two  signed  by  mark.  In  1780 
two  hundred  and  fifty-six  pioneers  of  Cum- 
berland signed  the  "  Articles  of  Agreement," 

d  only  one  signed  by  mark. 

But  the  mistake  referred  to  was  by  no 
means  a  universal  one.  In  the  case  of  the 
people  of  the  rich  valleys  and  plateaus,  the 
first  care  of  the  pioneers  was  to  establish  their 
log  church;  their  next  was  to  plant  by  it  an 
academy.  Many  such  schools  perished  either 
during  our  Civil  War  or  in  the  course  of 
the  years;  yet  there  remain  as  the  lineal  de- 
scendants of  such  schools,  supported  and  per- 


MOUNTAINEERS  27 

petuated  at  the  cost  of  unbounded  sacrifice 
on  the  part  of  able  Presbyterian  ministers,  at 
least  six  of  the  so-called  "  small  colleges  " 
to  which  the  people  of  our  generation  are  so 
generously  paying  eloquent  tribute. 

The  service  that  the  southern  mountain- 
eers have  rendered  in  national  matters  can 

hardly     be     overestimated. 
Service  to  the          Th       were  possessed  by  a 

Nation  *         i  /TV 

fierce  love  of  liberty,  and  so 

the  birthplace  of  American  liberty  very  appro- 
priately was  in  the  mountains.  In  Abingdon, 
Virginia,  at  the  junction  of  the  valleys  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  and  East  Tennessee,  as  early  as 
January  20,  1775,  a  council  met  that  as  Ban- 
croft says,  "  was  mostly  composed  of  Presby- 
terians of  Scotch-Irish  descent."  "  The  spirit 
of  freedom  swept  through  their  minds  as 
naturally  as  the  wind  sighs  through  the  fir 
trees  of  the  Black  Mountains.  There  they 
resolved  never  to  surrender,  but  to  live  and 
die  for  liberty." 

This  was  four  months  before  the  Scotch 
and  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  of  the  low- 
land hills  of  North  Carolina  issued  the  "  im- 
mortal Mecklenburg  Declaration,"  which  in 
its  turn  antedated  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence by  the  Continental  Congress. 

While  the  very  fewness  and  the  inaccessi- 
bility of  the  mountaineers  were  their  best  de- 


28  THE    SOUTHERN 

fense  from  the  armies  of  the  redcoats,  on  the 
other  hand,  their  insignificant  numbers  and 
remoteness  from  their  only 
Share  in  the  friends    exposed    the    fron- 

Revolution  ..  .,        ,      ,, 

tiersmen  to  the  deadly  as- 
saults of  the  Indians,  the  allies  of  Britain. 
The  mountaineers  have  been  called  by  Gilmore 
in  the  title  of  one  of  his  books,  "The  Advance 
Guard  of  Civilization  " ;  and  with  equal  ap- 
propriateness, in  the  title  of  another  of  his 
books,  "  The  Rearguard  of  the  Revolution." 
Twice  during  the  Revolution,  "  the  grand 
strategy  "  of  the  English  planned  simultane- 
ous assaults  upon  the  colonies  from  the  coast- 
line and  the  Indian  frontier;  and  twice  did 
the  little  band  of  Watauga  settlers  frustrate 
the  successful  carrying  out  of  those  sagacious 
and  most  sinister  plans  of  campaign.  In 
1776,  while  four  hundred  and  thirty-five  men 
behind  palmetto  logs  in  Charleston  beat  off 
the  British  fleet  with  its  five  thousand  sailors 
and  seamen,  Sevier  and  Shelby  and  their  two 
hundred  and  ten  backwoodsmen  repulsed  and 
defeated  the  Cherokees  led  by  Oconostota  and 
Dragging  Canoe.  Then  from  Georgia  north- 
ward to  Virginia,  the  frontiersmen  swept  in 
retributive  wrath  upon  the  Tory-led  Indians, 
and  dealt  them  such  a  blow  as  extorted  from 
them  an  unwilling  but  at  least  a  temporary 
peace.  At  the  same  time  the  Tories  that  in- 


MOUNTAINEERS  29 

fested  the  frontier  were  either  driven  out  or 
forced  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
Confederation. 

In  1779  when,  on  the  coast,  Savannah  had 
been  taken  by  Clinton's  expedition,  the  fron- 
tier invasion  was  forestalled  by  the  timely 
capture  of  all  the  ammunition  stored  for  the 
coming  campaign  by  the  British  and  their 
allies  at  what  is  now  Chattanooga,  by  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  mountaineers  led  again  by 
Shelby  and  Sevier.  Thus  were  the  southern 
colonies  protected  without  help  from  the  Colo- 
nies, by  the  woodsmen  who  while  fighting  for 
their  own  existence  also  contributed  materially 
to  the  saving  of  the  infant  nation. 

Nor  was  this  all  the  service  that  the  fron- 
tiersmen rendered  during  the  Revolution. 

The    darkest    hour    of    the 
Kings  Mountain      War  of  Independence  ^  the 

South  was  in  1780,  when  Charleston  was  cap- 
tured by  the  English,  Gates  and  DeKalb  were 
defeated  at  Camden,  and  the  interior  was  over- 
run by  the  victorious  British  soldiery.  Wash- 
ington said:  "  I  have  almost  ceased  to  hope." 
Especially  troublesome  was  the  presence  of 
Colonel  Ferguson,  who  established  himself 
with  two  hundred  regulars  in  the  western  bor- 
der counties,  attempting  to  draw  to  the  royal 
banner  the  rougher  element  that  inhabited  the 
foothills  and  were  neither  planters  nor  moun- 


30  THE    SOUTHERN 

taineers.  Two  thousand  Tories  had  joined 
the  standard,  and  Ferguson  was  threatening 
the  frontier. 

In  August  he  sent  word  to  Shelby  threaten- 
ing to  "  march  his  army  over  the  mountains, 
to  hang  the  patriot  leaders,  and  to  lay  the 
country  waste  with  fire  and  sword."  The  In- 
dians had  rallied  from  their  confusion  of  the 
previous  year,  and  were  menacing  the  settle- 
ments; but  not  for  a  moment  did  the  "  rear- 
guard "  hesitate  when  they  saw  their  duty  and 
their  opportunity.  When  all  other  opposition 
in  the  South  was  practically  dormant,  Shelby 
and  Sevier  formed  the  instant  purpose  not 
to  act  on  the  defensive  by  guarding  the  moun- 
tain passes  against  the  foe,  but  the  rather 
bravely  to  issue  from  their  natural  defenses 
and  to  assault  and  capture  Colonel  Ferguson 
and  his  force. 

The  story  of  the  Battle  of  Kings  Mountain 
is  too  long  to  tell  here,  but  no  more  heroic 
or  romantic  chapter  is  found  in  our  nation's 
history.  The  mountain  clans  mustered  on  the 
Watauga  and  a  draft  was  taken,  not  to  decide 
who  should  go,  but  who  should  stay  to  defend 
the  settlements.  By  September  twenty-fifth, 
eight  hundred  and  forty  mountain  men  were 
ready  for  the  fight,  including  four  hundred 
"  Backwater  Presbyterians  "  under  Colonel 
Campbell.  Of  the  six  leaders,  five  were  Pres- 


MOUNTAINEERS  31 

byterian  elders.  Dr.  Doak,  the  founder  of 
Washington  College,  committed  the  expedition 
in  prayer  to  the  God  of  battles,  and  addressed 
the  volunteer  soldiery,  closing  his  address 
with  the  words: 

"  Go  forth,  my  brave  men,  go  forth  with 
the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon." 

A  few  days  later,  at  Kings  Mountain,  after 
great  hardships  and  sufferings,  nine  hundred 
and  sixty  militiamen  surrounded  and  took 
by  storm  an  entrenched  natural  fortress, 
and  captured  over  eleven  hundred  English 
soldiers. 

"  That  glorious  victory,"  said  Jefferson, 
"  was  the  glorious  annunciation  of  that  turn 
in  the  tide  of  success  which  terminated  the 
Revolutionary  War  with  the  seal  of  indepen- 
dence." 

The  mountaineers  had,  without  order,  with- 
out pay,  without  commission,  without  equip- 
ment, and  without  hope  of  monetary  reward, 
struck  a  decisive  blow  for  the  entire  country. 
And  then,  upon  their  arrival  at  their  cabin 
homes,  without  a  day's  rest  they  had  to  hurry 
into  the  Indians'  territory  to  check  the  war- 
like expeditions  that  were  about  to  descend 
upon  the  settlements. 

Thus  were  the  trusty  rifles  of  the  pioneers 
used  within  one  short  month  against  the 
British  regulars  at  Kings  Mountain,  and 


32  THE    SOUTHERN 

against  their  savage  allies  at  Boyd's  Creek, 
three  hundred  miles  distant. 

The  mountaineers  again  guarded  the  fron- 
tier for  the  Government  during  the  second 

war  with  Britain.  Many 
War  of  'ia  and  voiunteers  served  in  the 
Mexican  War  .,  ,  .  ,. 

northern  armies,  but  most  of 

them  served  under  General  Jackson  in  the 
"  Creek  War  "  and  at  New  Orleans.  The  in- 
tensity of  the  patriotism  may  be  judged  by  a 
philippic  against  laggards  preached  in  1813 
by  Dr.  Isaac  Anderson  in  his  Maryville  pul- 
pit. His  text  was,  "  Curse  ye  Meroz,  saith 
the  angel  of  the  Lord,  curse  ye  bitterly  the 
inhabitants  thereof;  because  they  came  not  to 
the  help  of  the  Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord 
against  the  mighty." 

"  British  rum  and  Albion  gold  have  roused 
the  Creeks'  lust  for  rapine  and  blood.  We  are 
exposed  to  their  incursions;  let  us  carry  the 
war  into  their  country,  and  go  in  such  num- 
bers as  to  overwhelm  them  at  once.  Apathy 
on  this  subject  would  be  criminal.  The  call 
j>f  country  is  the  call  of  God." 

A  few  weeks  later  one  of  the  patriot  doc- 
tor's patriot  schoolboys,  young  Ensign  Sam 
Houston,  was  the  second  to  mount  the  breast- 
works of  the  Indian  stronghold  on  the  Talla- 
poosa.  Three  severe  wounds  he  received  that 
day,  but  he  lived  to  be  a  figure  of  national 


§ 


ts 
C 

5 


£ 


MOUNTAINEERS  33 

importance.  The  men  of  the  mountains 
crushed  the  Creeks  in  a  campaign  of  many 
battles;  and  then  at  New  Orleans  struck  the 
British  the  heaviest  blow  that  they  received 
during  the  war. 

In  1817  the  only  volunteers  General  Jack- 
son took  with  him  to  the  Seminole  War  were 
eleven  hundred  Tennesseeans.  In  the  war 
with  Mexico,  so  eager  were  the  mountaineers 
that,  at  the  first  call  in  Tennessee  for  three 
thousand  men,  thirty  thousand  volunteered 
their  services.  The  state  became  known  as 
"  the  Volunteer  State,"  but  the  entire  Appala- 
chian section  also  merited  the  name. 

Naturally  in  the  days  of  the  Civil  War, 
there  were  divisions  and  alienations  and  feuds 
in  the  Appalachians.  Many 
on  the  Virginian  side  of  the 
mountains  and  among  the  North  Carolina, 
Georgia,  and  Alabama  mountains,  espoused 
the  cause  of  the  Confederacy,  and  made  as 
good  soldiers  as  the  valorous  hosts  of  the 
South  could  boast.  "  Stonewall  "  Jackson  was 
a  mountaineer  indubitably  of  the  first  class, 
and  his  famous  "  Stonewall "  brigade  was 
made  up  largely  of  the  men  of  the  hills,  f  The 
West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  East  Tennes- 
see mountains  were  overwhelmingly  for  the 
Union;  while,  also,  there  were  many  men  of 
the  other  sections  referred  to  that  fought  for 


34  THE    SOUTHERN 

the  Union.  No  better  soldiers  were  found  on 
either  side  of  the  great  debate  at  arms  than 
were  those  that  enlisted  from  the  mountains. 

While  it  may  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  loyalty  of  the  Appalachians  decided  the 
great  contest,  that  loyalty  certainly  contrib- 
uted substantially  to  the  decision;  for  the 
mountains  cleft  the  Confederacy  with  a 
mighty  hostile  element  that  not  merely  sub- 
tracted great  armies  from  the  enrollment  of 
the  Confederacy,  but  even  necessitated  the 
presence  of  other  armies  for  the  control  of 
so  large  a  disaffected  territory.  The  Federal 
forces  actually  recruited  from  the  states  of 
the  southern  Appalachians  were  as  consider- 
able in  number  as  were  the  armies  of  the 
American  Revolution  gathered  from  all  the 
thirteen  colonies  and  considerably  exceeded 
the  total  of  both  mighty  armies  that  fought 
at  Gettysburg,  while  those  from  East  Tennes- 
see alone  numbered  over  thirty  thousand  men. 

These  soldiers  were  not  conscripted  or  at- 
tracted by  bounty,  but  rather  in  most  cases 
ran  the  gantlet  through  hostile  forces  for 
one,  two,  or  three  hundred  miles  to  reach  a 
place  where  they  could  enlist  under  the  flag 
of  their  country.  The  congressional  district 
in  East  Tennessee  in  which  the  writer  lives 
claims  the  distinction  of  having  sent  a  larger 
percentage  of  its  population  into  the  Union 


MOUNTAINEERS  35 

army  than  did  any  other  congressional  district 
in  the  entire  country. 

The  story  of  the  loyal  mountaineers  is  as 
romantic  and  thrilling  a  one  as  was  ever  told 
by  minstrel  or  by  chronicler  of  the  halcyon 
days  of  chivalry.  No  doubt  their  position 
was  one  of  the  divinely  ordained  influences 
that  contributed  to  that  outcome  of  the  frat- 
ricidal strife  which  all  Americans  now  recog- 
nize to  have  been  providential  and,  therefore, 
best. 

The  happy  union  of  later  days  was  most 
auspiciously  manifested  in  the  service  ren- 

dered side  by   side  by  the 
Spanish-Ameri-       g(mg  and  dsons  of  the 


can  War  u_n.  t 

veterans  of  both  armies  of 

the  sixties,  as  these  younger  Americans  united 
to  free  Cuba  from  Spanish  tyranny.  Of  the 
men  enlisted  during  the  Spanish-American 
War,  a  little  army  gathered  from  the  states 
of  the  southern  mountains  —  a  number  far 
in  excess  of  the  quota  to  be  expected  from 
those  states.  The  officers  testified  heartily  to 
the  superior  quality  of  the  young  moun- 
taineers as  soldiers  and  campaigners.  Said 
one  of  the  officers  :  "  The  soldiers  from  the 
mountains  of  the  South  were  the  best  soldiers 
we  had  in  the  war." 

This  chapter  would  be  incomplete  were  it 
not  to  call  attention,  before  closing,  to  the 


36  THE    SOUTHERN 

service  rendered  their  country  by  individuals 

of  this  mountain  region.     A  mere  mention  of 

a  few  representative  names 

will    emphasize    the    great 
Individuals 

part    that,    in    spite    of   all 

their  seclusion,  the  Appalachians  have  had  in 
the  affairs  of  the  nation.  There  are  the  pio- 
neers Boone,  Sevier,  the  Shelbys,  Davy 
Crockett,  and  Sam  Houston;  the  presidents 
Andrew  Jackson,  James  K.  Polk,  and  Andrew 
Johnson;  the  famous  Confederates  Zebulon  B. 
Vance,  John  H.  Reagan,  and  "  Stonewall  " 
Jackson;  the  renowned  Unionists  Parson 
Brownlow  and  Admiral  Farragut;  the  inven- 
tor Cyrus  H.  McCormick ;  and  the  man  of  the 
nation,  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Surely  the  annals  of  the  country  would  be 
the  poorer  were  the  deeds  of  the  men  of  the 
Appalachians  not  found  recorded  in  them. 


MOUNTAINEERS  37 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE      APPALACHIAN      PROBLEM 

THE  problems  that  America  confronts  and 
must  solve  are  legion  in  number.     There  are 

problems  national  and  prob- 
Dixie'sTwo  lems  sectional;  but  the  na_ 

Problems  ..       ,         , ,          ,    ,  , 

tional  problems  belong  also 

to  the  sections,  and  the  sectional  ones  belong 
also  to  the  nation.  Away  down  South  in  Dixie 
land,  there  are  two  great  problems — one, 
black ;  and  the  other,  white. 

The  black  problem  is  of  vastly  the  greater 
importance  because  it  affects  the  peace,  pros- 
perity,   and    civilization   of 
The  Black  the  entire   gouth^  if  not  of 

the  entire  nation.  It  is  a 
problem  to  the  right  solution  of  which  the 
best  efforts  of  patriots  must,  perhaps  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  be  most  faithfully  dedi- 
cated. It  demands  the  best  human  wisdom, 
and,  above  all,  that  wisdom  which  cometh 
from  above,  profitable  to  direct. 

While  we  lend  our  most  loyal  endeavor  to 
the  right  solution  of  this  supreme  problem — 


447943 


38  THE    SOUTHERN 

a  solution  that  shall  please  our  common  Lord 
and  Master — we  should  imitate  the  methods 
of  the  divine  Mathematician,  and  not  con- 
fine ourselves  to  one  problem  alone,  but  rather 
seek  also  the  solution  of  other  contemporary, 
coincident,  and  pressing  problems. 
/  The  second  problem  is  a  white  one;  it  is 
the  Appalachian  one.  It  is  presented  princi- 
pally by  the  third  class  of 
The  White  c 

the     mountaineers     of     the 

South.  Among  the  total 
four  millions  inhabiting  the  Appalachians 
there  are  a  considerable  number  (how  many, 
though  some  say  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand and  others  five  hundred  thousand,  there 
is  no  statistician  wise  enough  to  give  exact 
data)  that  are  sorely  in  need  of  our  Christian 
sympathy  and  help. 

To  use  one  metaphor,  they  are  our  belated 
brethren ;  they  are  behind  the  times ;  "  they 
have  fallen  behind  in  the  race  of  life  and 
progress  ";  they  have  thus  far  missed  the 
twentieth-century  train.  As  they  have  aptly 
been  called,  they  are  our  "  contemporary  an- 
cestors." To  use  another  metaphor,  they 
form  a  submerged  class — not  submerged  by 
the  waves  of  advancing  civilization,  for  these 
waves  have  rolled  up  against  the  rocky  bul- 
warks and  fallen  back  in  spray  upon  the  low- 
lands; but  submerged  in  sylvan  solitudes  and 


MOUNTAINEERS  39 

seclusion,  and  sometimes  buried  in  backwoods- 
man idleness  and  illiteracy. 

The  problem  is  simply  this:  How  are 
we  to  bring  these  belated  and  submerged 

blood  brothers  of  ours,  our 
The  Problem  and     Qwn  j^   ^  ^       Qut  in_ 

Its  Peculiarities  .,  ,  . 

to  the  completer  enjoyment 

of  twentieth-century  civilization  and  Chris- 
tianity ? 

The  Appalachian  problem  has  certain  pe- 
culiarities that  cannot  fail  to  engage  our  at- 
tention. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  our  problem, 
it  must  be  agreed  that  it  is  a  peculiarly  Ameri- 
can  one.      In    most   of  the 
An  American  heights   of   the    Appalachi- 

Problem  ,,      .  .   *T 

ans,  a  foreigner  is  almost  as 

rare  an  obj  ect  as  an  American  would  be  in  the 
wilds  of  Tibet.  An  Indian  in  his  warpaint 
in  a  crowded  city  street  would  hardly  excite 
more  genuine  interest  and  curiosity  than  does 
a  non-English-speaking  visitor  in  the  recesses 
of  the  Great  Smokies.  The  percentage  of 
foreign-born  population  in  the  mountains  is 
less  than  one  per  cent.  There  is  at  least  one 
spot  undisturbed  by  foreign  immigration. 
Only  in  some  mining  communities  are  there 
many  foreigners.  West  Virginia  has  five 
mountain  counties  that  have  an  average  of 
less  than  seven  persons  of  foreign  birth  to 


40  THE    SOUTHERN 

each  county.  Kentucky  has  one  county  with 
no  foreigner,  and  thirteen  counties  with  only 
from  one  to  seven  of  foreign  birth.  Virginia 
has  thirteen  counties  with  from  none  to  eight 
of  foreign  birth.  Tennessee  has  twelve  coun- 
ties with  from  none  to  seven  of  foreign  birth. 
North  Carolina  has  six  counties  containing  to- 
gether a  grand  total  of  eleven  foreigners,  the 
equivalent  of  just  one  ordinary  mountain 
family.  South  Carolina  has  a  county  with  a 
lonely  half  dozen  foreigners.  Georgia  has 
eight  counties  with  from  none  to  seven  of 
foreign  birth.  And  Alabama  closes  the  pro- 
cession with  three  counties  that  have  an  ag- 
gregate foreign  population  of  fifty-one. 

The  problem  is  also  a  purely  Protestant 
one.  There  is  no  other  locality  in  the  Eng- 

.  _    .    ,     .  lish-speakine  world  where  a 

A  Protestant  ° 

Problem  parallel  in  this  regard  can 

be  found  to  the  conditions  in 
the  Appalachians ;  for,  except  in  a  few  towns 
in  the  valleys,  not  a  Roman  Catholic  can  be 
found!  And  the  Protestant  prejudice  is  in- 
tense. 

When  the  writer  was  only  a  lad,  he  once 
found  himself  in  very  bad  repute  among  some 
mountaineers  because  he  was  mistaken  for  a 
Roman  Catholic.  He  rose  to  his  feet  to  lead 
the  opening  prayer  in  a  mountain  Sabbath 
school.  In  that  locality  it  was  for  some  rea.- 


MOUNTAINEERS  41 

son  the  universal  custom  to  kneel  in  prayer, 
and  some  one  explained  the  innovation  of  the 
visitor  by  saying  that  it  was  rumored  that 
Roman  Catholics  stand  in  prayer.  The 
stranger  was  not  reinstated  in  public  confi- 
dence until  he  told  the  people  that  Presby- 
terians, too,  stand,  as  did  Ezra  and  the 
congregation  of  Israel  in  the  offering  of 
prayer. 

Mission  teachers  have  sometimes  occasioned 
serious  trouble  for  themselves  by  teaching 
their  pupils  the  Apostles'  Creed  with  its  fa- 
tally misunderstood  sentence,  "  I  believe  in 
the  holy  catholic  Church."  No  amount  of 
footnotes  or  oral  explanation  could  render  the 
sentence  innocuous,  or  restore  confidence  in 
the  supposed  heretic  who  had  attempted  to 
teach  it  to  the  children.  The  mountaineers  are 
unanimously  and  unequivocally  Protestant; 
and,  as  has  already  been  stated,  Rome  has, 
for  some  reason,  made  no  effort  whatever  to 
proselyte  these  dwellers  in  the  hill  country. 

The  Appalachian  problem  is  almost  solely 
a  white  one.  In  I860,  there  were  but  few 

slaves  in  all  the  Appalach- 

A  White  Problem     .  j       i  n       f 

lans,     and     almost    all     of 

these  were  in  the  valleys.  Even  in  1900  there 
were  but  comparatively  few  colored  in  the 
Appalachians.  There  are  some  people  in  the 
recesses  of  the  southern  mountains  that  have 


42  THE    SOUTHERN 

never  seen  a  colored  man.  In  "  The  Little 
Shepherd  of  Kingdom  Come,"  the  hero  Chad 
saw  a  negro  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  He 
was  amazed,  and  asked  what  was  the  matter 
with  the  man's  face.  When  informed,  he 
braced  up  and  said:  "  It  don't  skeer  me." 

Five  mountain  counties  of  West  Virginia 
have  within  their  Tborders  from  twelve  to 
thirty-six  colored  people.  Kentucky  has  two 
counties  that  report  only  one  and  two  colored 
respectively.  Virginia  has  one  county  with- 
out a  colored  inhabitant,  and  another  with  only 
five.  North  Carolina  has  one  county  with  only 
twenty-six.  Tennessee  has  five  counties  with 
from  eleven  to  seventy-nine.  Even  Georgia 
and  Alabama  have  five  counties  with  only 
from  seven  to  one  hundred  and  eighty-one 
colored  people. 

The  only  part  of  the  South  that  is  not 
directly  concerned  in  the  race  problem  is  the 
purely  mountain  region.  The  two  problems 
of  the  South — the  colored  and  the  white  one — 
in  their  territorial  application  almost  exclude 
each  other. 

The  Appalachian  problem  is,  of  course,  a 
country  problem.     Perpetuating,  as  the  geo- 
graphical adjective  does,  the 
A  Country  Problem  e  r      .  .,        -  T    ,. 

name  of  a  tribe  of  Indians, 

the  Appalaches,  it  suggests  an  outdoor  prob- 
lem, one  near  to  Nature's  heart.  Save  in  an 


MOUNTAINEERS  43 

exceptional  case  like  Asheville,  there  are  no 
cities  in  the  very  mountains,  though  they 
flourish  in  the  great  valleys  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
and  East  Tennessee.  The  people  are  practi- 
cally all  farmers,  and  are  unspoiled  by  the 
contaminations  of  city  life.  And  their  life  is 
ideally  bucolic.  As  has  already  been  said,  if 
it  were  not  for  the  sheep-killing  dogs,  the 
mountaineers  might  easily  be  the  greatest  pas- 
toral people  of  modern  times. 

Nevertheless  the  problem  is  a  varied  and 
somewhat  complex  one.  The  endless  variety 

of     conditions     among    the 

A  Varied  and  •  1.1  ,  • 

various  settlements  is  appar- 

Complex  Problem  ,  , 

ent  to  one  who  has  any 

intimate  acquaintance  with  the  people.  The 
mountaineers  are  homogeneous  as  to  race,  and 
heterogeneous  as  to  conditions. 

It  is  an  utter  mistake  to  assume  that,  be- 
cause some — by  no  means  all — of  the  moun- 
tain counties  of  Kentucky  are  cursed  by  the 
vendetta,  that  reminder  of  the  clan  vengeance 
of  the  Gaels,  it  is  also  true  that  the  mountains 
of  East  Tennessee  and  western  North  Caro- 
lina are  likewise  afflicted  by  the  same  scourge. 
The  feud  is  unknown  in  most  of  the  Appa- 
lachians. So  also  is  it  a  mistake  to  suppose 
the  feudists  themselves  the  incarnation  of  all 
evil.  The  Presbyterian  bishop  who  knew 
them  best  declared:  "Feud  leaders  were 


44  THE    SOUTHERN 

usually  among  the  best,  most  honest,  and  suc- 
cessful men  of  the  mountains ;  and  when  they 
removed  to  other  localities,  made  some  of  the 
best  citizens." 

To  assume  that,  because  "  wildcat "  illicit 
distilling  is  done  in  some  places  in  the  moun- 
tains, the  favorite  occupation  of  the  mass  of 
the  mountaineers  is  moonshining  is  absurd, 
and  besides  does  great  injustice  to  a  valiant 
host  of  temperance  men  scattered  all  over  the 
mountains.  There  are  many  counties  that 
have  not  a  saloon  within  their  limits. 

Could  a  spiritual  and  moral  barometer  test 
the  condition  of  all  the  purely  mountain  com- 
munities, a  vast  variety  of  records  would  be 
given.  Some  neighborhoods  have  stood  by 
the  Sabbath,  the  home,  morals,  and  religion, 
while  many  others  have  wandered  far  astray. 

Then,  also,  as  might  be  expected,  superficial 
estimates  are  often  as  apt  to  be  too  harsh  as 
they  are  to  be  too  favorable.  For  example, 
one  of  the  most  inaccessible  counties  of  west- 
ern North  Carolina  has  been  widely  advertised 
as  a  very  immoral  county.  One  of  our  min- 
isters, however,  after  a  residence  of  several 
years  in  the  heart  of  that  impeached  county 
while  engaged  in  educational  and  religious 
work,  declared  that  he  never  before  lived  in 
a  place  where  there  is  so  little  secret  vice, 
and  that  he  has  known  of  almost  no  illegiti- 


MOUNTAINEERS  45 

mate  births  in  the  county  during  his  residence 
there.  While  the  conditions  there  are  primi- 
tive, and  large  families  are  being  reared  in 
single-roomed  cabins,  the  logically  inferred 
immorality  does  not  after  all  prevail.  Some- 
times under  a  rough,  suspicious,  and  repellent 
exterior,  the  heart  beats  true. 

There  are,  however,  many  places  in  the 
Appalachians  where  the  conditions  are  de- 
plorable and  call  loudly  for  reformation. 
Some  must  receive  help  from  outside  sources 
or  perish;  while,  as  we  have  seen,  others  will 
themselves  lend  a  most  effective  helping  hand 
in  the  making  of  the  new  mountains  that 
patriotism  and  philanthropy  unite  in  desiring. 
The  problem  is,  of  course,  not  so  complex  as 
is  that  which  concerns  the  redemption  and 
evangelization  of  the  exceptional  populations 
of  the  great  West,  or  the  hordes  in  the  poly- 
glot city  of  New  York;  but  it  is  nevertheless 
sufficiently  complex  to  challenge  the  best  zeal 
and  discretion  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

It  must  also  be  said  with  emphasis  that  our 
problem  is  an  exceedingly  delicate  one.  The 

highlanders  are  Scotch-Irish 
A  Delicate  '    ,    .       ,  .   ,        .  ..    , 

~    , ,  in     their     high-spiritedness 

Problem  , 

and     proud     independence. 

Those  who  would  help  them  must  do  so  in  a 
perfectly  frank  and  kindly  way,  showing  al- 
ways genuine  interest  in  them  but  never  a 


46  THE    SOUTHERN 

trace  of  patronizing  condescension.  As  quick 
as  a  flash  the  mountaineer  will  recognize  and 
resent  the  intrusion  of  any  such  spirit,  and 
will  refuse  even  what  he  sorely  needs,  if  he 
detects  in  the  accents  or  the  demeanor  of  the 
giver  any  indication  of  an  air  of  superiority. 
The  worker  among  the  mountaineers  must 
"  meet  with  them  on  the  level  and  part  on  the 
square,"  and  conquer  their  oftentimes  unrea- 
sonable suspicion  by  genuine  brotherly  friend- 
ship. The  less  he  has  to  say  of  the  superiority 
of  other  sections  or  of  the  deficiencies  of  the 
mountains,  the  better  for  his  cause.  The  fact 
is  that  comparatively  few  workers  are  at  first 
able  to  pass  muster  in  this  regard,  under  the 
searching  and  silent  scrutiny  of  the  mountain 
people. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said,  the  problem  is 
surely  an  urgent  one,  whether  we  take  into 
account  local  or  national  con- 
siderations.     The    men    of 
Problem  . 

the  mountains  need  us;  and 

surely  we  need  them.  We  must  add  their 
sturdy  strength  to  the  embattled  forces  of 
our  Christian  Americanism  in  the  great  war 
of  the  ages  that  is  being  waged  in  our  day 
and  in  our  land  for  the  supremacy  of  sound 
government  and  for  the  spread  of  God's  glori- 
ous gospel. 

Most  of  the  Appalachians  are  with  us  al- 


MOUNTAINEERS  47 

ready;  what  added  strength  it  would  give  us 
to  have  the  entire  army  of  the  four  millions 
on  our  side  in  this  momentous  conflict !  They 
are  ours  by  traditions  and  prejudices;  the  day 
will  come  when  they  will  be  ours  as  intelli- 
gent and  efficient  allies. 


48  THE    SOUTHERN 


CHAPTER    V 
THE    MOUNTAINEERS'    REASON    FOR    BEING 

BEFORE  going  further  into  the  discussion 
of  the  problem,  it  will  be  an  interesting  task 
to  search  out  somewhat  more  in  detail  the 
philosophy  of  the  formation  of  the  problem. 

How  did  the  mountaineers  ever  become 
mountaineers  ?  It  might  be  enough  to  ask  in 

How  They  Became  reP1«v:  How  has  !t  come  to 
Mountaineers  Pass  that  a11  mountains  have 

their  population  ?  Nature 
abhors  a  vacuum,  and  wherever  men  can  sup- 
port themselves,  they  take  possession  and 
establish  their  homes.  The  mountains  of  earth 
all  have  their  inhabitants.  Even  the  bleak 
coasts  of  Greenland  have  their  Esquimaux,  the 
deserts  of  Syria  have  their  Bedouin,  and  the 
lava  lands  of  our  West  have  had  their  Indians. 
In  trying  to  give  the  reasons  for  the  choice 
the  earliest  settlers  of  the  mountains  made  of 
their  wild  home,  we  can  but  approximate  the 
truth.  In  many  cases,  probably,  the  reasons 
for  the  choice  were  entirely  different  from 
those  that  we  usually  assign. 


a 


g 

r 


8 

r 


X 

I 


MOUNTAINEERS  49 

Some  pioneers,  whom  Izaak  Walton  would 
call  Piscators  and  Venators,  chose  the  moun- 
tains for  the  game  that  then 
Hunting  and  . .,,  ,.  ,    , 

,.      still  frequented  every  moun- 
Fishmg  Attractive      .     .     ^  * 

tamside.      They    had    such 

love  of  Nature  and  of  the  wild  life,  of  hunting 
and  of  fishing,  that  they  shrank  away  from 
civilized  society  because  it  lessened  the  oppor- 
tunities for  the  pursuit  of  their  craft.  Like 
Cooper's  Leatherstocking,  they  tried  to  keep  a 
few  days'  march  in  advance  of  the  vexations 
and  annoyances  of  civilization.  The  survival 
of  the  savage  strain  that  is  in  all  of  us  is 
to  be  reckoned  with.  It  is  hard  even  now 
for  all  the  allurements  of  business  and  so- 
ciety to  win  some  men  back  from  that  blessed 
spot  in  field  or  by  flood  where  they  tent  in 
vacation  days. 

Rip  Van  Winkle  fled  to  the  Catskills  to 
escape  domestic  turmoil,  and  he  slept  away 
twenty  long  years  before  he  returned.  In  the 
early  days  many  of  the  frontiersmen  crept  up 
into  the  coves  and  along  the  slopes  of  the 
mountains  and  found  Sleepy  Hollows,  where 
now,  "  each  in  his  narrow  bed  forever  laid," 
they  lie  in  the  sleep  of  death ;  and  where  now 
some  of  their  descendants,  metaphorically 
speaking,  lie  in  a  sleep  almost  as  profound 
as  is  that  which  their  forefathers  enjoy. 
These  sleepy  survivors,  however,  are  the 


50  THE    SOUTHERN 

hunters  and  trappers  of  to-day,  learned  in  all 

the  lore  and  craft  of  the  woodsman. 

Some  of  the  later  pioneers — for  few  of  the 

earlier  ones  settled  in  the  mountains — chose 
the  mountain  land  as  Hob- 
son's  choice,  because  it  was 

Available  ..  , .  ,    . 

available    and    the    choicer 

"  flatwoods  "  were  preempted.  Poverty  de- 
cided their  location,  as  it  decides  in  the  city 
who  shall  live  in  the  cheapest  tenements  and 
who  shall  vegetate  in  the  "  Cabbage  Patch  " 
in  which  Mrs.  Wiggs  plants  her  humble 
home. 

Some  of  the  many  victims  of  the  harrying 
and  dragooning  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolines 
during  the  Revolutionary  War  were  forced 
in  ruin  and  desperation  to  abandon  their  low- 
land homes  and  to  press  westward.  While  the 
more  vigorous  reached  the  better  lands  beyond 
the  mountains,  others  with  more  incumbrances, 
or  with  less  daring  and  energy,  or  with  Fox's 
"  broken  axle/'  stopped  in  the  mountains,  and 
their  descendants  have  never  abandoned  the 
rocky  acres  that  became  their  modest  patri- 
mony. 

s-  It  has  been  a  theory  with  some  that  the 
remoter  mountaineers  are  the  descendants  of 

criminals   and  outlaws  that 
Few  "  Outlaws "          ,       ,.         .     ., 

took  refuge  in  the  mountain 

fastnesses  to  escape  the  punishment  of  their 


MOUNTAINEERS  51 

crimes.  Fiske  says  in  his  "  Old  Virginia  and 
Her  Neighbors  "  that,  in  the  earlier  days — 
before  lawbreakers  were  in  the  habit  of  fleeing 
to  New  York  and  other  large  cities  to  hide 
from  the  officers  of  the  outraged  law — there 
were  some  criminals  from  among  the  "  inden- 
tured white  servants  "  of  Virginia  who  took 
refuge  in  the  mountains  and  planted  perma- 
nent homes  there. 

Gilmore  insists  that  there  was  a  "  low- 
down  "  class  in  the  mountains  in  the  days 
of  the  Revolution.  "  They  were  mostly  de- 
scended from  the  more  worthless  of  the  poor 
white  settlers  who,  driven  back  from  the  sea- 
board, had  herded  among  these  wooded  hills 
with  the  hordes  of  horse-thieves  and  criminals 
who  had  escaped  from  justice  in  the  older 
settlements.  The  progeny  of  these  people 
are  even  at  this  day  a  foul  blot  on  American 
civilization." 

But  in  the  Appalachians  as  a  whole  the 
percentage  of  such  settlers  must  have  formed 
almost  a  negligible  quantity  in  the  analysis 
that  the  historian  may  attempt.  The  moun- 
tains have  not  been,  to  any  larger  extent  than 
other  sections  of  the  country,  a  Botany  Bay 
or  Pitcairn  Island.  The  original  "  old  man 
of  the  [Appalachian]  mountain  "  was  neither 
a  wild  man  nor  an  assassin. 

The  natural  and  economic  antagonism  be- 


52  THE    SOUTHERN 

tween  slaveholders  and  non-slaveholders  was 
so  great  that  it  was  to  be  expected  that  wher- 
ever, as  in  the  case  of  the 
mountains,  opportunity  of- 
fered itself  for  the  non- 
slaveholders  to  live  at  a  comfortable  distance 
from  the  cause  of  friction,  they  would  seize 
that  opportunity.  Slavery  did  not  pay  in  the 
mountains,  and  so  it  did  not  exist  there  to 
any  appreciable  extent.  This  common  an- 
tagonism was  a  cause  of  the  settling  of  the 
mountains;  it  was  also  an  eifect  of  that  sepa- 
ration, taken  in  connection  with  the  opposing 
interests  that  it  occasioned. 

Gilmore  says  of  our  mountaineers:  "  Their 
ancestors  being  too  poor  or  conscientious  to 
hold  slaves  were,  more  than  one  hundred  years 
ago,  forced  back  to  the  mountains  by  the 
slaveholding  planters  of  the  seaboard  and  in- 
sulated there,  shut  out  from  the  world,  and 
deprived  of  schools  and  churches.  The  pres- 
ent condition  of  these  people  is  directly  trace- 
able to  slavery;  for,  in  making  the  slave  the 
planter's  blacksmith,  carpenter,  wheelwright, 
and  man-of-all-work,  slavery  shut  every  av- 
enue of  honest  employment  against  the  work- 
ing white  man  and  drove  him  to  the  mountains 
or  the  barren  sand  hills." 

The  aristocratic  slaveholder  from  his  river- 
bottom  plantation  looked  with  scorn  on  the 


MOUNTAINEERS  53 

slaveless  dweller  among  the  hills;  while  the 
highlander  repaid  his  scorn  with  high  disdain 
and  even  hate.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  for 
inherited  love  of  the  Union,  the  mountaineers 
of  this  vast  region  that  almost  bisected  the 
territory  of  the  Confederacy  stood  by  the  na- 
tional Government  in  the  Civil  War.  It  is  a 
question  as  to  who  suffered  more  from  the 
effects  of  slavery,  the  slave  or  the  slaveless 
white  man. 

The  greatest  cause  of  the  populating  of  the 
hill  country,  however,  is  yet  to  be  mentioned ; 

it  is  simply  the  natural  in- 
Mountain  creage  of  the  original  fami. 

lies.  This  mightiest  of  all 
causes  for  the  existence  of  the  four  millions 
is  often  overlooked,  though  it  explains  what 
might  otherwise  be  inexplicable.  The  popula- 
tion at  first  was  thin  and  scattering,  not  too 
large  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  several  rea- 
sons for  their  immigration  that  have  here  been 
adduced.  There  was  abundant  room  at  first, 
game  was  plentiful,  and  only  select  tracts  of 
land  were  tilled. 

The  fiat  of  the  Creator,  "  Be  fruitful  and 
multiply,"  was  heeded;  and  the  pioneer  fam- 
ily in  the  course  of  years  increased  to  twelve 
or  fifteen ;  then  harder  lines  were  encountered. 
The  young  people,  when  they  mated — and 
they  married  very  young — took  a  less  desir- 


54  THE    SOUTHERN 

able  part  of  the  family  domain,  built  a  cabin , 
cleared  a  few  rocky  acres,  and  in  turn  began 
their  struggle  for  existence.  Game  disap- 
peared, trade  was  non-existent;  times  grew 
harder;  and  faster  grew  the  families.  This 
process  was  continued  for  several  generations, 
and  now  we  see  the  natural  and  inevitable 
result. 

A  sight  that  may  still  be  witnessed  is  that 
of  a  young  mountaineer  at  work,  in  the  face 
of  the  jovial  gibes  of  his  friends,  clearing 
for  himself  and  his  "  intended  "  or  his  al- 
ready "  obtained  "  a  field  or  so  on  a  hillside 
that  has  never  felt  the  profanation  of  a  plow. 
The  field  will  provide  corn  for  his  "  pone  " 
bread;  and  a  few  razor-backed  pigs  grown, 
not  fattened,  on  the  mast  in  the  woods  will 
furnish  his  "  side-meat." 

The  writer,  not  long  since,  conducted  the 
funeral  of  a  mother  in  Israel  who  united  with 
the  Presbyterian  Church  as  long  ago  as  1837. 
She  had  a  hundred  and  six  direct  descendants 
— eight  children,  fifty-two  grandchildren,  and 
forty-six  great-grandchildren.  The  writer 
also  recently  matriculated  a  new  student  from 
a  cove,  a  splendidly  developed  young  woman, 
who  told  him  that  she  had  to  earn  her  own 
way,  "  for,"  said  she,  "  father  has  sixteen 
children."  And  the  sixteen  all  had  the  same 
mother. 


MOUNTAINEERS  55 

Since  these  human  bees  from  our  mountain 
hives  almost  invariably  settle  just  as  nearly 
in  sight  of  the  old  bee-gum  as  possible,  there 
need  be  no  wonder  that  the  woods  are  full 
of  them.  There  is  no  suspicion  of  "  race 
suicide  "  in  the  Appalachians.  Out  of  moun- 
taineers' loins  proceed  armies.  A  corporal's 
guard  becomes  a  great  people. 

A  staid  little  towhead,  almost  crowded  out 
of  the  cabin  by  his  multitudinous  brothers  and 
sisters,  once  said — and  it  was  his  parents  of 
whom  he  was  speaking,  "  Clay  and  Sally  Ann 
has  heaps  of  children  " ;  and  as  the  youngsters 
were  gamboling  about  the  cabin  door,  there 
were  literally  "  heaps  "  of  them. 

When  we  take  into  account  facts  such  as 
these  just  related,  and  the  additional  one  that 
early  death  is  rare  in  the  mountains,  we  can 
easily  see  that  fecundity  and  longevity  unite 
to  make  the  Appalachian  problem  a  growing 
one.  The  millions  did  not  go  there ;  as  Topsy 
might  say,  "  They  just  growed  there."  And 
in  the  near  future  even  greater  clans  will 
people  the  rocky  hills  and  prove  that  the  story 
of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha  is  no  fable,  but 
rather  is  veritable  history  that  repeats  itself 
even  in  the  reputedly  childless  twentieth  cen- 
tury. 

A  graphic  map  showing  the  relative  number 
of  births  in  the  different  sections  of  our  coun- 


56  THE    SOUTHERN 

try  would  bear  eloquent  testimony  to  the  pro- 
lific fruitfulness  of  the  Appalachians. 

Such  are  some  of  the  reasons  that  account 
for  the  peopling  of  the  Appalachians.     But 

_,.     _  why  do  not  the  mountaineers 

Why  Remain  in  „,  .  . 

the  Mountains?       emigrate  to  Oklahoma  and 
elsewhere,  as  do  the  people 
of  the  valleys  ?    Why  have  four  or  five  genera- 
tions held  to  the  same  simple  life  ? 

Some  of  the  young  men  who  have  come  into 
contact  with  people  from  the  outside  world 

do  go  into  the  "  flatwoods." 
Few  Do  Migrate  ,°  ./ 

and    even    migrate    to    the 

West.  In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  many  migrated  in  search  of  a  free- 
soil  country,  to  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  adjacent 
territory;  and  their  descendants  are,  as  a  rule, 
substantial  citizens  of  to-day.  Soon  after  the 
Civil  War,  many  migrated  to  Texas ;  and  more 
recently  some  have  gone  to  Oklahoma,  Indian 
Territory,  and  even  as  far  northwestward  as 
Oregon  and  Washington.  The  mass  of  the 
people,  however,  live  and  die  where  they  were 
born.  This  fact  can  be  accounted  for  in  dif- 
ferent ways. 

The  principal  reason  is  found  in  the  inertia 
that  is  the  concomitant  of  a  life  of  isolation. 
What  has  been  tends  to  con- 
tinue.    The  unmoved  waters 
no    longer    quicken;    they    rather    stagnate. 


MOUNTAINEERS  57 

Only  give  Nature  time,  and  she  will  even  yet 
produce  fossils;  and  surely  in  the  mountains 
there  is  "  all  the  time  in  the  world."  The  lack 
of  prosperity  induces  shiftlessness,  and  where 
shiftlessness  rules,  there  is  little  initiative; 
and  it  requires  a  strong  spirit  of  initiative  to 
break  loose  from  time  immemorial  associa- 
tions. Conservatism  dominates  in  the  se- 
cluded sections  of  the  Appalachians. 

The  mountaineer's  bump  of  locality  is  fully 
developed.     He  has  a  strong  attachment  to 

his  native  heath,  its  bracing 
Local  Attachment    ^  itg  refreshing  water^  its 

unrestrained  liberty.  "  Tears  like  I  cain't 
live  nowhere  else,"  he  tells  you. 

"  Dear  is  that  shed  to  which  his  soul  conforms, 
And  dear  that  hill  which  lifts  him  to  the  storms. 
So  the  loud  torrent  and  the  whirlwind's  roar 
But  bind  him  to  his  native  mountains  more." 

Ambition  lies  dormant  in  his  nature.    There 
is  nothing  in  his  immediate  environment  to 

arouse   it;    and    all    else    is 
Ambition  Dormant  yague  flnd  nnccrtain  rumor. 

"  Though  poor  the  peasant's  hut,  his  feasts  though 

small, 
He  sees  his  little  lot  the  lot  of  all." 

The  geologist  speaks  of  "  the  Appalachian 
type  of  folding  " ;  and  so  may  we  speak  of 


58  THE    SOUTHERN 

the  folding  away  of  the  human  ambitions 
petrified  in  the  strata  of  Appalachian  exist- 
ence. Nature  yields  to  a  man's  utmost  en- 
deavor hardly  more  than  enough  to  keep  soul 
and  body  together;  and  if  there  is  a  surplus 
of  products,  there  is  no  market  for  that  sur- 
plus. So  the  mountaineer  yields  to  the  order- 
ings  of  fate,  and  throws  away  ambition,  and 
contents  himself  with  raising  what  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  for  actual  existence,  and 
philosophically  comforts  himself  with  the 
backwoods  aphorism,  "  Enough's  a  plenty." 

A  native  timidity  also  dominates  the  moun- 
taineer. Bold  as  a  lion  in  physical  danger, 
he  shrinks  from  the  society 
of  the  lowlands.  Though  he 
makes  occasional  trips  to  the  valley  town 
to  sell  apples,  huckleberries,  chestnuts,  and 
"  sang-root,"  he  is  not  at  his  ease  until  his 
striding  steps  are  again  turned  mountainward. 

In  addition  to  these  reasons  for  his  home- 
keeping,  there  is  what  to  him  is  the  decisive 

one  of  a  lack  of  precedent. 
Precedent  Lacking   NQ  Qne  of  hig  ..^folja" 

ever  left  his  native  hills,  and  why  should  he 
leave  them?  Until  a  tangible  and  success- 
attended  precedent  is  set  for  him  by  some  one 
he  trusts — and  probably  even  then — he  will 
remain  just  where  birth  and  breeding  have 
placed  him. 


MOUNTAINEERS  59 

Their   extreme   poverty   discourages   those 
who  would  leave  the  mountains  from  doing 

so.  They  battle  for  exist- 
Poverty  Prevents  ence  witfa  sterile^  mproduc_ 

tive  soil.  The  narrow  valleys  and  the  moun- 
tainsides, so  steep  that  sometimes  they  must 
be  cultivated  by  the  hoe  if  at  all,  return  to 
"  the  man  with  the  hoe  " — or  for  that  matter 
to  the  woman  and  children  with  the  hoe — only 
enough  corn  and  potatoes  to  provide  for  the 
daily  bread.  No  money  to  pay  for  removal 
to  a  new  country  or  for  setting  up  new  homes 
comes  to  hand  to  give  the  ability  to  realize 
the  dream  of  new  homes  in  a  new  world. 

Whether  our  philosophy  may  or  may  not 
explain  the  fact,  a  fact  it  nevertheless  remains 

that,  rude  and  inhospitable 
So,  Populous  and  sparsely  settled  as  those 

Mountains  .  .,        .         ,     , 

regions  are,  the  Appalach- 
ians abound  in  human  beings,  as  in  the 
other  works  of  God;  that  those  people  are 
there  in  most  cases  for  no  fault  of  their  an- 
cestors or  of  themselves;  and  that  they  de- 
serve our  sympathy  and  not  our  scorn. 


60       THE  SOUTHERN 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE    PROBLEM'S    REASON    FOR    BEING 

THE  problem  has  been  stated  to  be:  "  How 
are   we   to   bring   certain   belated   and    sub- 
merged  Appalachian    blood 
The  Problem  brethren  of  ours  out  into  the 

Restated  .  ,. 

completer      enjoyment      of 

twentieth-century  civilization  and  Christian- 
ity? "  We  have  seen  that  many  of  the 
pioneers  in  the  mountains  were  of  superior 
lineage  and  of  the  best  development  of  their 
day.  How  are  we  to  account  for  the  lapsing 
of  many  of  their  descendants  to  a  lower  civ- 
ilization than  was  that  which  their  forefathers 
enjoyed? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  decide  the 
amount  of  exculpation  that  may  be  accorded 
the  contemporary  mountaineers,  and  the  de- 
gree of  sympathy  that  may  be  felt  for  them. 
There  is  a  world- wide  difference  between  the 
degeneracy  that  Nordau  tells  of,  and  the  pro- 
vincial limitations  that  we  find  in  mountain 
districts. 

Theirs  is  a  case  of  what  has  been  termed 
"  arrested  development."  While  they  have 


MOUNTAINEERS  61 

stood  still,  and  held  what  their  fathers  had 
several  generations  ago,  the  world  has  forged 

far  ahead,  and  left  them 
Some  In  SUtu  fflr  in  the  rear  There  .g  & 

great  difference  between  the 
America  of  1780  and  the  America  of  1906,  a 
century  and  a  quarter  later.  There  are  some 
purely  mountain  communities  that  for  various 
local  and  providential  reasons  have  substan- 
tially retained  the  high  degree  of  intelligence 
and  force  of  character  with  which  the  first 
settlers  endowed  them.  True,  their  charac- 
teristics belong  to  colonial  days  rather  than 
to  those  of  the  twentieth  century. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are,  doubtless, 
other  communities  in  the  mountains,  as  else- 
where, that  started  with  comparatively  low 
standards  of  intelligence  and  conduct,  for, 
though  their  founders  were  of  noble  race,  they 
themselves  were  but  indifferent  representa- 
tives of  that  race.  Even  the  Edinburgh,  the 
Glasgow,  and  the  Londonderry  of  to-day  can 
parallel  from  "  the  masses,"  as  distinguished 
from  their  "  classes,"  any  cases  of  departure 
from  racial  excellence  that  we  may  discover 
among  the  mountain  "  masses." 

But,  after  deducting  these  two  classes  from 
the  total  of  our  purely  mountain  people,  the 
fact  still  remains,  and  is  fully  confirmed  and 
established  by  local  history  and  family  tradi- 


62  THE    SOUTHERN 

tion,  that  the  present  generation,  in  many 
cases,  lack  much  of  the  intelligence  and  cul- 
ture and  force  of  character  for  which  their 
pioneer  ancestry  were  distinguished  when 
they  entered  the  mountains  to  make  homes 
for  themselves  and  their  children. 

There  are,  however,  several  good  and  suffi- 
cient reasons  to  be  adduced  to  account  for  the 

losses  sustained  by  these 
Reasons  for  the  ^^  f  ^  Qri  inal 

Problem 

mountaineers,   where   losses 

have  been  experienced.  They  are  such  as 
merely  need  mentioning  in  order  to  be  recog- 
nized by  every  student  of  history  as  being 
real  and  adequate  and  precedented. 

Confessedly,  many  who  settled  in  the  moun- 
tains were  less  energetic  and  aspiring  than 
their  brethren  that  pushed 
Lack  of  Live  forward  to  the  better  lands 

Neighbors  ,,      ,    .          _     . 

in  the  valley  below.  Profes- 
sional hunters  are  poor  farmers.  The  in- 
fluence that  such  people  would  exert  upon 
those  possessed  of  more  energy  would  increase 
by  intermarriage  and  constant  example  and 
intercourse.  In  such  society  the  ambitious 
and  energetic  family  would  be  unpleasantly 
conspicuous,  and  feel  so  much  out  of  place 
as  to  lead  it  to  seek  other  environment,  or  to 
abandon  some  of  its  energy  so  as  to  do  in  the 
mountains  as  the  mountaineers  do. 


MOUNTAINEERS  63 

Indeed,  the  fact  that  in  their  isolation  the 
mountaineers  have  not  enjoyed  the  stimulus 

of  a  varied  society  accounts 
Lack  of  Varied         fm        t  of  that  retrograde 

Society  „  A11  , 

movement.         All    nature  s 

difference  keeps  all  nature's  peace  " ;  and  so- 
ciety's differences  prevent  social  stagnation. 
Solitary  confinement,  even  within  the  walls 
of  the  mountains,  has  its  disadvantages.  So- 
ciety's range  of  ideas  is  decided  by  the  kind 
of  society  that  exists.  In  a  few  of  the  more 
isolated  mountain  districts  there  has  been, 
owing  to  their  isolation,  too  much  intermar- 
riage, even;  and  what  injures  European  roy- 
alty does  not  improve  mountain  society. 
Premature  marriage  also  has  the  unhappy 
result  of  causing  some  of  the  women  to  age 
prematurely. 

Dr.  W.  S.  Plumer  Bryan  has  well  said : 
"  They  have  been  reduced  to  their  present 
condition  of  poverty  and  ignorance  by  the 
strenuous  conditions  under  which  they  have 
been  compelled  to  live.  No  one  who  has 
never  himself  experienced  those  conditions 
can  realize  how  terrible  is  their  effect  upon 
the  individual  life,  or  how  great  their  effect 
must  be  upon  the  life  of  a  family  from  gen- 
eration to  generation.  To  live  on  the  moun- 
tainside and  perhaps  in  the  depths  of  a  forest, 
without  roads,  without  means  of  transporta- 


64  THE    SOUTHERN 

tion,  on  such  products  as  the  soil  outside  the 
cabin  door  provides,  and  in  climates  of  great 
severity,  will  tell  upon  any  man  or  woman, 
or  family  or  stock,  however  fine  its  origin 
may  be. 

"  The  physical  effect  is  only  exceeded  by 
the  mental.  Imagine  your  own  condition  if  you 
were  compelled  to  live  year  after  year  in  the 
same  house,  and  with  the  same  surroundings, 
engaged  in  the  drudgery  of  the  house  or  in 
the  drudgery  of  the  field.  The  nearest  neigh- 
bor's house  is  often  too  far  for  a  visit;  and 
if  it  be  near  enough,  the  house  is  often  but 
little  better  than  the  one  from  which  the 
visitor  comes.  The  conversation  centers  on 
the  crops  and  the  household  events,  with  only 
now  and  then  a  vague  report  from  the  great 
world  outside. 

"  Anyone  who  would  not  degenerate  under 
hard  conditions  like  these  would  be  more  than 
human ;  and  in  my  opinion  these  strenuous 
conditions  are  quite  enough  to  account  for  the 
peculiarities  and  deficiencies  of  the  class  un- 
der discussion." 

After  the  days  had  largely  passed  when 
the  greater  part  of  a  living  could  be  se- 
cured by  the  hunt  or  chase, 

and  the  mountaineers  found 
themselves     constrained     to 

have  recourse  to  the  unproductive  soil  for  the 


3 

- 


c 


MOUNTAINEERS  65 

corn  and  potatoes  that  must  supplement  their 
ham  and  bacon  in  sustaining  life,  they  were 
taught  by  sad  annual  experience  that  their 
best  efforts  could  not  insure  any  adequate  re- 
turn for  their  labor;  that  the  thin  sandy  soil 
never  would  yield  abundantly  enough  to  pay 
except  niggardly  for  the  toil  expended. 

If  it  is  every  season  demonstrated  that  by 
no  expenditure  of  toil  or  energetic  effort  can 
farming  be  made  remunerative,  why,  pray, 
should  men  expend  that  hopeless  toil  and 
energy?  Let  enough  be  secured  to  supply 
the  simplest  wants,  and  then  let  all  bootless 
labor  be  economized.  By  Nature's  decree 
they  were  destined  to  hopeless  poverty;  then 
why  not  submit  to  the  decree,  eat  the  modest 
fare  provided,  drink  the  delicious  water  gush- 
ing from  a  thousand  springs,  and  be  as  merry 
as  such  a  hard  life  may  allow? 

No  reward  for  labor,  no  stimulus  to  labor ! 
"  A  Scotchman  even  will  not  work  when 
there  is  no  incentive."  Idleness  was  a  logical 
result  of  despair  of  substantial  reward  for 
industry. 

Not  only  was  there  the  absence  of  reward 
for  labor  on  the  little  home  place,  but  there 

was  also  the  almost  complete 
Lack  of  Trade  j       .     ..         f  ... 

deprivation  or  opportunities 

for  trading  with  others  of  the  same  neighbor- 
hood or  of  more  distant  communities.  For 


66  THE    SOUTHERN 

a  long  time  there  were  not  even  the  lumber 
and  the  tanbark  industries.  Almost  every- 
thing that  was  consumed  in  the  cabin  was 
produced  on  the  place.  Even  the  limited 
wardrobe  was  woven  on  the  old-fashioned 
loom;  and  the  illumination  was  provided  by 
beeswax  tapers,  or  tallow  dips,  or  "  light 
pine  "  torches. 

Thus  trade  was  severely  limited  to  a  little 
neighboring  swapping  and  bartering.  In  the 
typical  mountain  glen,  the  wants  are  sternly 
restricted  to  what  Nature  provides.  There 
can  be  no  considerable  trade  without  some- 
what adequate  means  of  communication  and 
transportation. 

Almost  the  only  means  of  communication 

among  the  southern  Appalachians  has  been 

that  provided  by  the  rocky, 

Lack  of  Means  of    g^g^ed  roads   leading 

Communication        f     J  ' 

from  one  settlement  to  an- 
other. As  a  glance  at  the  map  will  show,  the 
region  is  singularly  devoid  of  navigable  water- 
courses, such  as  in  other  sections  of  our  coun- 
try provided  comfortable  and  inexpensive 
means  of  intercommunication  even  before  the 
days  of  railroads.  A  corresponding  lack  of 
railroad  facilities  has  existed  until  very  re- 
cently, and  even  yet  exists  to  a  remarkable 
degree.  A  journey  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  miles 
over  the  almost  impassable  mountain  roads 


MOUNTAINEERS  67 

will  readily  explain  what  seems  so  strange  to 
most  visitors  to  the  mountains — the  fact  that 
so  many  mountaineers  have  never  traveled  be- 
yond the  limits  of  their  native  county. 

The  lack  of  trade  and  the  prohibitive  dis- 
tance from  all  markets  naturally  resulted  in 

the  almost  complete  dearth 
Lack  ol   ffoney        of  mQney  ^  ^  practically 

quarantined  cabins  and  coves.  Some  econo- 
mists are  ready  to  maintain  the  thesis  that 
the  preservation  of  society  demands  the  coin- 
age of  money;  and  all  students  of  sociology 
must  agree  that  "  no  money  "  does  undoubt- 
edly mean  the  decline  of  civilization.  Which 
is  the  cause  and  which  the  effect,  one  may 
sometimes  be  puzzled  to  decide,  but  the  fact 
is  demonstrated  beyond  all  question.  Many 
Appalachian  mountaineers  do  not  have  ten 
dollars  in  money  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other.  No  money  and  no  trade  cruelly  ex- 
clude means  of  comfort  and  all  books  and 
other  aids  to  mental  culture  and  illumination. 
The  writer  once  visited  a  cabin  in  which  the 
only  literature  was  an  out-of-date  copy  of  a 
patent-medicine  almanac.  Money  is  an  ad- 
vance agent  of  civilization. 

One  of  the  most  evident  and  potent  reasons 

for  the  retrograde  movement 

has  been  the  lack  of  public 

schools — and  of  any  schools,   for  that  mat- 


68  THE    SOUTHERN 

ter.  The  mountains  are  to  the  nation  a  per- 
manent object-lesson  of  the  absolute  necessity 
of  popular  education  to  safeguard  even  our 
most  virile  stock.  In  ante-bellum  days  there 
were  in  the  Appalachians  practically  no 
schools.  Since  the  war  there  has  been  much 
improvement,  but  yet  not  very  much.  Owing 
to  the  small  school  funds  of  the  states  in- 
volved, and  to  the  fact  that  these  funds  are 
prorated  according  to  the  enumeration  of 
the  school  population,  the  sparsely  settled 
regions  of  the  mountains  have  few  schools, 
and  far  between ;  and  even  these  schools  in 
many  cases  are  open  but  two  or  three  months 
in  the  year. 

In  the  carefully  prepared  statistics  em- 
ployed by  the  Southern  Education  Board  in 

its  campaign  for  better  pub- 
Southern 

Education  Board's  lic  schools'  startling  fac  s 
Statistics  are  Presen^ed-  In  the  bul- 

letin for  May,  1Q02,  entitled 
"  Educational  Conditions  in  the  Southern 
Appalachians,"  appear  the  following  para- 
graphs : 

"  In  that  portion  of  West  Virginia,  Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
South  Carolina,  and  Georgia  contained  be- 
tween the  foothills  of  the  Blue  Ridge  on  the 
east  and  those  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains 
on  the  west,  there  were  in  1900,  in  a  total 


MOUNTAINEERS  69 

number  of  870,537  male  whites  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  over  142,312,  or  16.34  per  cent., 
who  could  not  read  and  write.  The  table  here- 
with gives  the  figures  for  the  Appalachian 
section  of  each  state. 

"  Condition  of  white  voters  in  the  southern 
Appalachian  region  as  to  literacy: 


Literates  Eliterate* 

West  Virginia  ........  202,459  24,229  10.68 

Virginia  .............  107,790  20,422  15.94 

Kentucky  ............   93,530  25,851  21.65 

North  Carolina  .......  102,918  25,460  19.83 

East  Tennessee  .......  134,138  30,127  18.34 

South  Carolina  .......  42,577  6,572  13.37 

Georgia  .............  44,813  9,651  17.72 


Totals 728,225         142,312  16.34 

"  Figures  for  illiteracy  may  not  be  very 
accurate,  but  where  sixteen  per  cent,  of  the 
white  voters  report  themselves  to  the  census  as 
illiterate  it  means  that  at  least  fifty  per  cent, 
of  the  white  population  over  ten  years  of  age 
is  wholly  without  letters." 

The  eight  states  of  the  southern  Appa- 
lachians are  all  found  among  the  eleven  states 
and  territories  that  have  the  largest  number 
of  illiterates  to  the  thousand  inhabitants  of 
native-born  white  population,  the  number 
varying  from  one  hundred  in  West  Virginia 


70  THE    SOUTHERN 

to  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  in  North  Caro- 
lina, as  against  five  in  Washington  and  eight 
in  Oregon.  They  are  also  among  the  thirteen 
states  that  have  the  largest  number  of  native- 
born  white  illiterate  youths  of  from  ten  to 
twenty  years  of  age. 

Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina 
have  nearly  one  illiterate  youth  of  this  age  to 
every  square  mile  of  their  territory.  The 
number  of  illiterates  of  this  class  in  North 
Carolina  exceeds  the  aggregated  sum  of  all 
such  illiterates  in  the  following  thirty-two 
states  and  territories:  Nevada,  Wyoming, 
District  of  Columbia,  Montana,  Idaho,  Utah, 
Washington,  Oregon,  South  Dakota,  North 
Dakota,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire,  Dela- 
ware, Nebraska,  Rhode  Island,  Vermont, 
Arizona,  California,  Kansas,  Colorado,  Ok- 
lahoma, Minnesota,  Massachusetts,  Iowa, 
New  Jersey,  Maine,  Wisconsin,  Michigan, 
Indiana,  Ohio,  New  York,  and  Illinois. 

These  distressing  statistics  were  collated  by 
loyal  citizens  of  the  states  of  the  Appalachians 
who  are  connected  with  the  Southern  Edu- 
cation Board,  and  who  very  justly  insist 
that  a  correct  diagnosis  of  the  condition  of 
the  section  must  be  made  before  remedial 
treatment  is  applied. 

The  sway  of  illiteracy  is  a  most  malign 
one.  To  be  shut  out  from  the  sweet  world 


MOUNTAINEERS  71 

of  sacred  Scripture,  of  science,  of  history,  of 
biography,  and  of  literature  in  general,  is  to 

live  in  the  shadow  of  a  per- 
Lack  of  Books  ,  ,.  /•  .  .  n- 

petual  eclipse  of  intelli- 
gence, and  in  a  twilight  that  borders  hard 
on  the  region  and  shadow  of  mental  death. 
This  illiteracy  alone  is  sufficient  to  account 
for  whatever  deterioration  may  be  observed 
among  our  kinsmen  of  the  mountains.  There 
is  no  race  of  men  on  earth,  be  it  French 
or  German  or  Scandinavian  or  Anglo-Saxon 
or  Celtic  or  Scotch-Irish,  that  can  either  at- 
tain to  their  true  sphere  or  retain  that  sphere 
without  the  help  of  schools  and  of  the  peri- 
odical and  book-world. 

It    is    among    the    bookless    and    the    un- 
schooled that  false  teachers  find  their  prey. 

As  the  writer  has  person- 
Mormons  ,,  j  ,  ji  ., 

ally  and  repeatedly  seen  the 
emissaries  of  the  Mormon  abomination  ply- 
ing their  mission  of  perversion  and  seduction 
among  the  Smokies,  he  has  felt  the  same 
deep  indignation  that  on  other  occasions  he 
has  felt  upon  hearing,  at  night,  in  his  moun- 
tain vacation  camp,  the  baying  of  the  blood- 
thirsty dogs  in  too  successful  pursuit  of 
bleating  and  panic-stricken  sheep.  And  what 
must  the  Shepherd  of  the  sheep  feel  as  he 
sees  his  flocks  on  a  thousand  hills  the  quarry 
of  the  tireless  wolverenes  of  the  West? 


72  THE    SOUTHERN 

Another  cause  of  the  deterioration  in  the 
mountains    can    hardly    be    emphasized    too 
strongly.     It  is  the  lack  of 


Leader  *"  educated  ™n"try,  and, 

indeed,  the  lack  of  edu- 
cated leadership  of  any  kind.  Even  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  would  have  sadly 
degenerated  had  there  been  no  educated 
ministry  to  bring  weekly  influences  of  an  en- 
nobling sort  to  bear  upon  the  people.  To 
be  deprived  of  an  intelligent  ministry  would 
be  calamitous  enough  even  in  a  community 
of  books  and  lectures;  but  to  lack  it  where 
there  were  no  other  educated  leaders,  and 
few  if  any  books,  would  be  fatal  to  high 
ideals  or  attainments. 

Let  it  be  said  here,  however,  that  any  gen- 
eralization regarding  the  mountain  preach- 
ers that  would  ignore  the  splendid  service 
that  has  been  rendered  to  civilization  and 
Christianity  in  thousands  of  communities 
in  the  southern  highlands  by  numberless 
humble  servants  of  God  who  have  preached 
his  glorious  gospel  with  all  the  powers  they 
had,  would  be  at  once  ungracious  and  un- 
just. 

From  the  pioneer  days  God  has  had  his 
loyal  servants  of  different  faiths  that,  often 
at  their  own  charges  and  often  at  much 
heroic  self-denial,  have  for  long  lifetimes 


MOUNTAINEERS  73 

called  the  mountaineers  to  repentance,  right 
living,  and  the  Saviour  of  men.  Uncommis- 
sioned by  mission  boards,  unpraised  and  un- 
supported by  outside  bodies  or  churches, 
uncomplainingly  and  unflaggingly  they  have 
served  Him  who  had  called  them  to  be 
prophets  of  the  Great  Smokies.  And  they 
have  fought  drunkenness  and  licentiousness 
and  murder  and  all  the  other  evils  of  the 
mountains,  and  have  fearlessly  raised  a  stand- 
ard about  which  the  redeemed  might  rally. 
They  were  men 

"  Who  all  their  lives  in  silence  wrought, 
And  then  their  graves  in  silence  sought," 

never  having  suspected  that  they  were,  what 
God  some  day  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
Church  triumphant  will  proclaim  them, 
worthy  to  reign  over  many  celestial  cities. 

No  "  Old  Mortality "  can  chisel  deeper 
their  names  in  the  orderly  kirkyards,  for  the 
poor  parsons  of  the  hills  lie  in  hillocks  un- 
marked unless  by  a  couple  of  sandstones 
picked  up  by  the  grave-diggers  from  the 
rocky  hillside.  But  the  God  of  all  the  earth 
keeps  their  names  graven  on  his  mighty  and 
loving  hand.  Their  fame  is  great  in  heaven, 
and  let  us  not  forget  them — whether  they 
were  Wesleyan  circuit-riders,  or  Lutheran 


74  THE    SOUTHERN 

ministers,  or  Baptist  preachers,  or  our  own 
Presbyterian  parsons. 

But  after  we  have  done  full  justice,  were 
that  possible,  to  the  faithful  though  often 
illiterate  mountain  preachers,  it  is  of  course 
a  notorious  fact  that  there  have  been  many 
others,  in  many  communities,  that  have  been 
utterly  unfitted  by  culture  or  nature  or  grace 
for  the  position  of  leaders  of  God's  people. 
Illiterate,  narrow,  and  bigoted,  and  sometimes 
wrong  in  life,  such  men  have  been  blind  lead- 
ers of  the  blind,  and  both  preacher  and 
people  have  fallen,  sorely  injured,  into  the 
mountain  gulch. 

Where  such  leadership  has  existed,  the 
confusion  of  thought  and  ethical  standards 
has  been  great  and  sad.  On  the  other  hand, 
whenever  educated,  or  at  least  somewhat  edu- 
cated, and  naturally  intelligent  and  wise  men 
have  stood  for  God  in  their  strength  of  char- 
acter and  zeal,  they  have  had  an  influence 
that  would  be  utterly  impossible  in  the  low- 
lands. In  those  exceptional  cases  in  which 
our  own  Church  or  some  other  has,  through 
a  succession  of  educated  ministers,  stood  by 
the  work  for  generations  past  there  is  light 
to-day  on  the  mountain,  and  the  fruit  of  the 
handful  of  corn  shakes  like  Lebanon  in  that 
light. 

A  doctrine   in   vogue   nowadays   is   evolu- 


MOUNTAINEERS  75 

tion.     There  is  certainly  a  very  strong  social 
tendency  that  well  merits  the  name  "  de  "- 

volution.  Unless  the  so- 
Devolution  Versus  .  ,  j  ., 

_    ,  ,.  cial    environment    and    the 

Evolution  . 

forces  of  labor  and  intelli- 
gence and  religion  are  favorable,  even 
Scotch-Irishmen  created  in  the  image  of 
God  will  lose  much  that  would  otherwise  in- 
dicate their  proud  descent.  It  is  by  no  means 
unprecedented  that  isolation  should  injure 
even  strong  races.  As  Goldsmith  says  of  the 
dweller  in  the  Alps: 

"  But  calm,  and  bred  in  ignorance  and  toil, 
Each  wish  contracting  fits  him  to  the  soil. 
And  as  refinement  stops,  from  son  to  son 
Unaltered,  unimproved,  the  manners  run." 

It  cost  the  Scotch-Irish  Protestants,  be- 
sieged by  James  II  within  the  walls  of  their 
Londonderry,  the  most  heroic  and  strenuous 
endeavors  on  their  own  part,  even  under  wise 
and  able  leadership,  to  save  the  city  and  to 
drive  the  Roman  Catholic  army  from  before 
its  walls.  Indeed,  their  efforts  had  to  be 
reinforced  by  the  relief  that  William  III  sent 
them  before  they  could  see  Rosen  and  the 
Jacobite  army  raise  the  siege.  Equally  will 
it  require  heroic  and  strenuous  endeavor  on 
the  part  of  the  beleaguered  mountains  aided 
by  wise  and  able  leaders  within,  and  rein- 


76  THE    SOUTHERN 

forced  by  expeditions  of  relief  from  without, 
to  raise  the  siege,  and  to  make  all  the  moun- 
tains what  our  forefathers  made  London- 
derry— the  happy  home  of  thrift,  intelli- 
gence, morality,  and  religion. 


MOUNTAINEERS  77 


CHAPTER    VII 

PIONEER     PRESBYTERIANISM     AND     THE 
PROBLEM 

THE  dominant  faith  of  the  pioneers  in  a 

large  part  of  the  southern  Appalachians  was 

Presbyterianism.       This    is 

Presbyterians  Were  full       recognized     by     the 

Dominant  ,  .  .     .  *a.      j-*o-        t 

historians    ot    the    different 

states  in  which  the  mountains  lie.  Says 
Phelan  in  his  "History  of  Tennessee": 

"  Religion  in  our  state  was  coeval  with 
immigration.  The  Presbyterians  at  first 
had  every  outlook  to  obtain  a  complete 
ascendency  in  the  religious  thought  and  life 
of  Tennessee.  As  they  went  they  built 
churches,  they  established  congregations, 
they  formed  presbyteries.  Presbyterianism 
was  first  upon  the  ground,  and  its  ministers 
were  leading  figures  in  the  state.  They  were 
men  of  strong  characters,  and  the  minds  of 
men  had  not  yet  been  turned  to  spiritual  af- 
fairs. Besides  this,  they  were  practical 
school-teachers . ' ' 

Similar   testimony  is   given  by   the   other 


78  THE    SOUTHERN 

historians  of  the  border.  The  first  Christian 
ministers  that  attempted  to  win  the  moun- 
tains for  Christ  were  of  the 
tth  Of  Calvin  and  Knox. 
The  Presbyterian  ministers 
that  were  found  in  the  first  influx  of 
pioneers  lived  exceedingly  busy  lives.  They 
founded  churches  and  schools,  and  took 
prominent  part  in  all  that  contributed  to  the 
welfare  of  the  new  settlements.  They  par- 
ticipated in  military  expeditions  and  in  the 
defense  of  cabin  and  blockhouse  and  took 
prominent  part  in  constructive  work  in  po- 
litical affairs.  They  were  preachers,  educa- 
tors, warriors,  statesmen,  and,  in  general,  men 
of  affairs  among  the  frontiersmen  with  whom 
they  had  cast  their  lot. 

The    early    ministers    were    indefatigable 
preachers,  addressing  the  people  in  private 

houses,  forts,  the  forest,  and 
Founded  Churchei    .1  ,,       ,  •       » 

then    in    the    log    churches 

that  frontier  reverence  erected  for  the 
worship  of  Almighty  God.  They  organized 
churches  at  central  places,  and  maintained 
there  divine  services  as  often  as  their  large 
fields  would  allow;  and  in  these  centers  the 
people  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles  or  more 
gathered  at  the  stated  services,  rejoicing  that 
Providence  had  placed  the  means  of  grace 
at  their  very  doors !  The  woods  around  the 


MOUNTAINEERS  79 

church  were  filled  with  the  horses  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  for  all  the  people  that  did 
not  walk  came  horseback  by  the  various  trails 
that  converged  at  the  house  of  God. 

And  these  primeval  preachers  planted 
Christian  churches  in  many  of  the  more 
thickly  settled  sections  of  the  Appalachians. 
Take  Abingdon  Presbytery,  situated  in  the 
heart  of  the  Appalachians,  as  an  example. 
The  members  of  that  presbytery  reported  by 
name  to  the  General  Assembly  of  1789 
twenty-three  congregations,  and  eight  years 
later  twenty-two  additional  ones.  The  inde- 
fatigable efforts  of  the  pastors  of  the  pio- 
neers were  crowned  with  most  gratifying 
success. 

The  pioneers  of  the  Church  were  also  the 
pioneers  of  Christian  education,  and,  indeed, 

of     education     in     general, 
Founded  Schools      upon  the   frontiers.     Their 

creed  was,  "  Christ  and  his  Church:  education 
and  its  schoolhouse."  Practically  all  the 
frontier  forces  of  education  were  in  their 
hands.  The  parsons  were,  almost  all  of  them, 
pedagogues,  "  the  first  and  the  best  "  that  the 
backwoods  young  people  enjoyed. 

In  these  schools  the  men  that  were  to  shape 
the  affairs  of  state  received  the  rudiments 
of  their  education.  The  ministers,  however, 
were  not  yet  satisfied  with  what  they  had 


80  THE    SOUTHERN 

accomplished,  and  in  a  number  of  cases  estab- 
lished and  conducted  academies,  in  which 
thorough  work  was  done  by  the  founders  who 
had,  many  of  them,  been  educated  in  the  best 
eastern  institutions  of  learning. 

In  1776  the  Presbytery  of  Hanover 
founded  Liberty  Hall  Academy,  in  Lexing- 
ton, Virginia;  but  its  predecessor,  Augusta 
Academy,  was  established  by  Robert  Alexan- 
der as  early  as  1749-  Dr.  Samuel  Doak  in 
1783  secured  a  charter  for  Martin  Academy, 
while  in  1 8 1 8  he  founded  Tusculum  Academy. 
Dr.  Hezekiah  Balch  established  in  the  eighties 
his  school  at  Greeneville.  Dr.  Anderson  in 
1 802  founded  Union  Academy  near  Knoxville. 
And  there  were  other  academies  scattered 
throughout  the  Presbyterian  Marches. 

All  the  early  colleges  established  within  the 
range  of  the  Appalachians  were  Presby- 
terian. Out  of  the  day- 
Founded  Colleges  school  grew  ^  academy. 

and  to  the  academy  was  added  a  college  de- 
partment which  was  planned,  founded,  and 
conducted  by  Presbyterian  parsons.  Without 
other  endowment  than  their  fervent  love 
for  God  and  his  mountain  people,  and  their 
indomitable  purpose  and  perseverance,  these 
consecrated  men  conducted  colleges  that 
served  the  cause  of  God  even  more  grandly 
than  the  founders  dared  to  dream. 


MOUNTAINEERS  81 

The  story  of  the  Appalachians  would  be 
only  imperfectly  told  were  no  mention  made 
of  the  splendid  early  service  of  Washington 
and  Lee  University,  as  it  is  now  called; 
Washington  (Tennessee),  chartered  in  1795; 
Greeneville  and  Tusculum,  chartered  as 
Greeneville  in  1794,  and  as  Tusculum  in 
1844;  Blount  College,  now  the  University  of 
Tennessee,  founded  in  1794;  and  Maryville 
College,  founded  as  The  Southern  and  West- 
ern Theological  Seminary,  in  1819-  Hampden 
Sidney,  founded  in  1775,  and  Centre  College, 
founded  in  1819,  though  located  outside  the 
Appalachians,  contributed  to  their  illumina- 
tion. These  several  institutions  provided 
many  of  the  leaders  of  Church  and  State  not 
merely  for  the  Appalachians,  but  also  for  the 
great  Southwest. 

Just  as  the  first  of  these  institutions 
trained  among  many  other  pioneer  educators, 
the  founders  and  first  presidents  of  Washing- 
ton, Blount,  Maryville,  Tusculum,  and  sev- 
eral other  colleges,  so  did  these  institutions  in 
their  turn  raise  up  a  host  of  educators  for  the 
Southwest.  Indeed,  most  of  the  professional 
men  and  other  leaders  of  that  great  region 
received  what  training  was  theirs  in  the  hum- 
ble halls  of  these  colleges  of  the  frontier. 
The  records  of  these  institutions,  where  any 
records  have  survived  the  ravages  of  time 


82  THE    SOUTHERN 

and  of  the  Civil  War,  bear  eloquent  tribute 
to  the  unparalleled  service  our  Presbyterian 
forefathers  of  the  log  colleges  rendered  in 
the  making  of  the  West. 

The   pioneer   ministers,   in   view   of   their 
education,    culture,   and    ability,    were   natu- 
rally   deferred    to    even    in 

Helped  political  matters.     They  as- 

the  State 

sisted     materially     in     the 

foundation  of  the  political  institutions  of  the 
frontier.  The  elders  of  the  Presbyterian 
churches  were  also  commonwealth  builders  of 
no  mean  importance  and  ability. 

Among  the  laymen  trained  in  the  school 
of  experience  and  some  of  them  educated  in 
the  log  colleges,  there  were  many  who  con- 
tributed largely  to  the  establishing  of  civil 
government  in  the  new  settlements,  and,  as 
the  years  went  by,  to  the  foundation  of  ter- 
ritory and  state.  A  book  could  be  written 
specifying  such  political  service  rendered  the 
cause  of  the  nascent  states  of  the  Appalach- 
ians. The  heroes  of  the  Alamance,  while  foes 
of  tyranny,  were  champions  of  civil  govern- 
ment. 

The  early  ministers  of  the  Appalachians 

were,  like  Paul,  abundant  in 
And  Were  i  u         •     •  n. 

_  labors,  in  journevings  often, 

Successful  ,    •  ' 

in  perils  in  the  wilderness, 

in  weariness  and  painfulness,   in  watchings 


MOUNTAINEERS  83 

often,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  cold  and 
nakedness,  besides  being  burdened  with  the 
care  of  all  the  churches.  Like  Paul,  too,  their 
labors  were  blessed  of  heaven.  They  laid 
the  foundations  of  Christian  commonwealths, 
tamed  the  wildness  of  frontier  human  nature, 
and  won  great  numbers  of  souls  for  Him  who 
preached  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  They 
established  many  churches,  and  replenished 
the  fires  on  many  family  altars.  They  never 
suspected  themselves  of  heroism,  but  their 
figures  loom  up  through  the  mists  of  more 
than  a  century  as  worthies  of  true  heroic  race. 
Inspired  by  their  creed  and  more  still  by 
their  Christ,  they  consecrated  their  learning 
and  their  lives  to  the  Christianization  of 
their  brethren  of  the  Scotch-Irish  border. 

Their  own  generation  might  well  rise  up 
to  call  them  blessed,  while  succeeding  gener- 
ations   have   not   done   well 
And  Their  Work       . ,.  ,,        ,          ,.  ,    . 

if  they  have  forgotten  what 
Abides  ; 

these  brave  chaplains  of  the 

wilderness  did  for  the  militant  fathers  of  the 
frontier.  Those  faithful  men  builded  not  so 
successfully  as  they  wished,  but  more  wisely 
than  they  knew.  While,  for  reasons  that 
shall  be  enumerated,  the  purely  mountain  re- 
gions were  not  adequately  or  permanently 
possessed,  the  more  thickly  populated  sec- 
tions were  occupied  by  presbyteries  and 


84  THE    SOUTHERN 

synods,  which  are  to-day  continuing  and  ex^ 
tending  the  work  of  the  fathers.  The  statis- 
tical tables  of  the  assemblies  of  the  various 
Presbyterian  churches  occupying  the  field 
tell  of  the  work  that  is  being  done. 


MOUNTAINEERS  85 


CHAPTER    VIII 

LATER     PRESBYTERIANISM     AND     THE 
PROBLEM 

How  did  it  come  to  pass  that  Presbyterian- 
ism  failed  to  hold  the  predominance  in  the 

Partial  Failure  of    ^^    af*T    the    Pioneer 

Presbyterianism      Period?      There    are    man? 

causes     that    conspired    to 

limit  the  spread  of  Presbyterianism.  No- 
where does  the  creed  or  the  polity  of  our 
Church  appeal  to  all  classes  of  people  and 
all  types  of  mind  in  the  community  any  more 
certainly  than  do  other  denominational  creeds 
and  polities. 

The    rapid  decay   of  education   that  fol- 
lowed the   settling  in  the   mountains  neces- 
sarily made   a  Church  less 

welcome    that    insisted    so 
tion  Made  It  Less 
Welcome  much     upon     an     educated 

ministry.  The  Presbyterian 
ministers  recognized  this  fact,  and  very  natu- 
rally many  of  them  went  where  they  were 
wanted,  and  where  they  could  take  their  fami- 
lies with  fair  hope  of  supporting  and  educat- 


86  THE    SOUTHERN 

ing  them.    They  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
go  where  they  were  not  especially  welcome. 
It  was  physically  impossible  for  the  pio- 
neer preachers   to  reach  the  recesses  of   so 
vast  a  parish.    The  territory 

contains,   as  we  have   seen. 
Too  Vast  ., 

101,880   square  miles;    and 

the  long  and  lonely  roads  are  almost  impass- 
able during  a  large  part  of  the  year.  As  well 
expect  a  handful  of  merchants  to  do  business 
for  all  the  broad  Appalachians.  The  popula- 
tion was  far  more  sparsely  settled  in  the 
early  days  than  at  present;  and  so  all  that 
the  preacher  could  find  at  the  end  of  a  weary 
journey  might  be  only  two  or  three  families. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that  those  were 
the  days  of  small  things — beginnings  only, 

in    religious    matters  —  in 
Ministers  Few         America.       There    was    no 

General  Assembly  until  Hanover  presbytery 
was  thirty-five  years  old.  So  were  Lexing- 
ton, Abingdon,  and  Transylvania  presbyteries 
older  than  the  Assembly.  There  were  only 
266  Presbyterian  ministers  in  the  entire 
United  States  in  1799.  If  the  7,750  minis- 
ters even  now  belonging  to  our  Church  were 
to  settle  in  the  southern  Appalachians,  there 
would  be  room  for  all,  and  a  parish  of  506 
souls  for  every  one.  The  ministers  of  the 
early  day  had  to  be  provided  by  the  frontier 


MOUNTAINEERS  87 

Church,  for  the  demands  for  ministers  by  the 
rest  of  the  rapidly  growing  country  ex- 
hausted the  entire  supply,  in  an  epoch  at  the 
beginning  of  which  there  was  no  Presby- 
terian theological  seminary  in  the  United 
States.  Practically  no  more  volunteers  could 
be  expected  from  the  North  and  the  East.  „ 

If  the  cost  of  an  education  in  these  better 
days  hinders  many  from  entering  our  minis- 
try, as  it  confessedly  does,  what  must  have 
been  true  in  those  days  of  hardship  and 
struggle  for  existence,  when  every  male  in- 
habitant was  needed  for  the  clearing  of  the 
wilderness,  and  "  the  winning  of  the  West?  " 
The  few  frontier  ministers  did,  amid  their 
many  other  toils,  educate  such  young  men  as 
they  could  find,  who  could  support  themselves 
and  who,  they  thought,  would  be  useful  in  the 
ministry;  but  what  were  they  among  so 
many?  The  Presbyterian  Church  adhered  to 
its  time-honored  requirements  of  a  thorough 
training  for  the  ministry,  and  made  no  modi- 
fication of  its  conditions  for  entrance  into  its 
ministry.  All  its  ministers  in  the  mountains 
must  have  attained  its  high  standard  of  edu- 
cation. Other  Churches  profited  by  this  fact. 

The  pioneer  was  practically  penniless,  so 

far  as  money  was  concerned ; 
No  Mission  Boards        ,      -.       /     ,     ,  , 

and  after  he  had  kept  the 

wolf    of    poverty    from    his    own    door,    he 


88  THE    SOUTHERN 

had  little  strength  to  devote  to  the  support  of 
the  Church.  What  was  needed  then  is  what 
is  immensely  useful  now — a  home  mission 
board  that  should  tide  the  backwoodsmen  over 
the  days  of  privation  until  they  might  be  able 
to  care  for  themselves.  But  not  till  1802  did 
the  General  Assembly  even  appoint  a  Stand- 
ing Committee  on  Home  Missions ;  and  at  the 
end  of  a  generation  the  entire  income  of  the 
Board  of  Missions  was  only  $27,654.  The 
entire  income  of  even  the  present  great  Home 
Mission  Board  would  be  found  sadly  inade- 
quate were  that  Board  to  attempt  to  supply 
the  gospel  to  all  the  people  of  the  southern 
highlands.  Had  there  been  a  strong  Home 
Board  in  the  days  of  the  pioneers,  the  story 
in  the  southern  mountains  would,  however, 
have  been  very  different.  But  the  whole  land 
was  then  mission  territory  without  any  or- 
ganization that  could  assist  in  its  evangeliza- 
tion; so  the  places  that  could  support  the 
gospel  enjoyed  the  dispensation  of  it;  while 
the  poorer  sections  were,  too  many  of  them, 
forced  to  dispense  with  it.  The  Sustentation 
Scheme  worked  wonders  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  and  a  similar  scheme  with  financial 
backing  would  have  greatly  improved  the 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  American  high- 
lands. 

There  was  a  constantly  enlarging  field  of 


MOUNTAINEERS  89 

work  lying  to  the  south  and  west,  and  the 
ministers  heard  the  insistent  calls  from  every 

direction,   "  Come  over  and 
Many  Ministers       hd     ug ,  „     R  wag  merd     fl 

Went  West  .   *  .     .       ~  , f, 

choice  among  mission  ru-lds, 

and  many  chose  to  go  westward.  A  very 
large  number  of  the  early  ministers  of  the 
Southwest  and  of  the  Northwest  were  origi- 
nally from  East  Tennessee  and  the  valleys 
still  farther  eastward. 

Indeed,  the  Presbyterian  churches  of  the 
Appalachians  have  been,  from  the  first,  con- 
stantly depleted  in  strength  by  a  steady  and 
uninterrupted  stream  of  emigrants  to  the 
West.  Hundreds  of  churches  from  Indiana 
to  Texas  and  across  to  Oregon  were  founded 
largely  by  the  Presbyterians  of  the  moun- 
tains. In  some  cases  entire  churches  removed 
to  the  West. 

The  workers  in  the  mountains  saw  all  that 
we  now  see  of  the  need  and  the  strategic  im- 
portance of  their  position, 
But  Workers  Did  and  gome  Q£  them  made 

Their  Utmost  ,  _ 

herculean    efforts    to    meet 

their  opportunity.  The  records  of  the  pres- 
byteries and  synods  that  had  to  do  with  the 
region  bore  frequent  testimony  to  the  solici- 
tude those  bodies  felt,  and  to  the  efforts  they 
made  to  reach  the  destitute  fields  in  the  moun- 
tains. Long-distance  criticism  of  the  fathers' 


90  THE    SOUTHERN 

work  would  be  silenced  if  the  critics  were 
to  do  as  the  writer  has  had  the  pleasure  of 
doing — read  the  entire  official  records  of  one 
hundred  years'  proceedings  of  one  of  those 
Appalachian  presbyteries.  The  wants  of  the 
field  were  keenly  realized,  and  noble  efforts 
to  meet  those  needs  were  made  by  a  pitifully 
inadequate  force.  Their  cry  was  an  echo  of 
the  Master's:  "  Pray  ye  therefore  the  Lord 
of  the  harvest,  that  he  will  send  forth  la- 
borers into  his  harvest." 

Rev.  Isaac  Anderson,  D.D.,  who  had  been 
educated   at   Liberty   Hall   Academy   in   old 

Rockbridge  County,  Vir- 
Southern  and  .  .  r  j  v  i«  i 

.    jrmia,     found     himself      in 
Western  Theologl-  6    .  ' 
cal  Seminary  early  manhood  an  ordained 

minister  settled  in  the  cen- 
ter of  East  Tennessee.  As.  he  viewed  the 
religious  destitution  of  the  valley  and  the 
mountains,  his  heart  bled  for  the  hurt  of  the 
daughter  of  his  people.  He  made  the  weary 
pilgrimage  to  seven-year-old  Princeton  The- 
ological Seminary  in  the  hope  that  he  could 
induce  some  of  the  young  men  about  to  gradu- 
ate from  that  school  of  the  prophets  to 
reinforce  the  inadequate  band  of  toilers  in 
the  Tennessee  mountains.  In  vain  was  his 
pleading,  however,  for  were  not  many  fields 
nearer  home  in  dire  need?  And  why  not 
"  begin  at  Jerusalem  "  ? 


MOUNTAINEERS  91 

Sorely  disappointed,  but  dauntless  in  his 
devotion  and  courage,  this  Presbyterian 
prince  turned  his  horse's  head  homeward. 
During  the  two  weeks'  journey  down  the 
Shenandoah  and  onward  to  his  home,  the 
shadow  of  the  Appalachians  was  upon  his 
spirit  and  conscience.  In  that  shadow  a 
mighty  resolve  was  made — that  since  he  could 
not  bring  the  Princeton  boys  to  his  help,  he 
would  found  a  Princeton  for  the  Southwest. 
He  soon  laid  his  plans  before  the  newly 
formed  Synod  of  Tennessee,  and  that  body 
founded  at  Maryville  The  Southern  and 
Western  Theological  Seminary.  With  a  very 
little  amount  of  help  from  man  and  with  a 
vast  amount  of  help  from  God's  grace  and 
providence,  he  put  the  rich  gift  of  his  life 
into  the  seminary,  with  the  one  purpose  of 
raising  up  workers  for  the  great  mountain 
field  of  the  South. 

His  broad  shoulders  bore  an  Atlas'  load  of 
toil,  responsibility,  and  privations,  till  they 
tottered  and  fell  under  the  burden.  But  he 
had  given  thirty-eight  years  to  his  seminary 
— or  Maryville  College,  as  it  came  to  be  called 
— and  had  the  unspeakable  joy  of  seeing,  be- 
sides hundreds  of  trained  Christian  laymen, 
as  many  as  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  the 
graduates  of  his  school  enter  the  Presbyterian 
ministry.  At  times  a  majority  in  some  of  the 


92  THE    SOUTHERN 

mountain  presbyteries  were  graduates  of  his 
training.  And  no  one  can  compute  the  in- 
direct influence  of  his  great  work  and  life 
upon  the  other  churches  of  the  highlands. 
God  showed  in  Dr.  Anderson  what  one  conse- 
crated life  could  do  for  the  redemption  of  the 
mountains. 

We  may  here  anticipate  a  little.  The  troub- 
les that  led  to  the  separation  from  us  of 

what  was  called  the  Cumber- 
TheDivi.ionsof     1&nd    presb  terian    church 

Presbyterumsm  •'..  .  .  ' 

and  to  the  division  of  the 

mother  Church  into  the  Old  and  New  Schools, 
had  perhaps  a  more  paralyzing  effect  in  the 
Appalachians  than  elsewhere,  because  of  the 
already  weak  condition  of  the  Church.  It 
resulted  in  the  extinction  of  the  Church  in 
some  places,  and  reduced  it  in  many  other 
sections  to  a  state  of  mere  existence.  And 
as  if  these  internal  difficulties  were  not 
enough,  the  national  strife  culminating  in  the 
Civil  War  added  another  line  of  cleavage  to 
an  already  twice-bisected  Church.  Thus  sev- 
eral disunions  took  away  much  Presbyterian 
strength. 

Few  who  were  not  present  in  the  section 
can  imagine  the  overthrow  of  church  life  that 
was  wrought,  especially  by  the  cataclysm  of 
the  Civil  War.  The  most  conscientious  and 
earnest  men  of  both  sides  of  the  controversy, 


MOUNTAINEERS  93 

including  no  small  number  of  elders  and  min- 
isters, went  to  the  front,  and  armies  of  them 
offered  up  their  invaluable  lives  as  a  pledge 
of  their  consecration  to  what  they  deemed 
right. 

Let  us  revert  now  to  the  condition  in  which 
the  pioneers  discovered  themselves  when  the 

Presbyterian  Church  found 
Other  Dcnom-          the   re  •       too   immense  to 

inations  ...     ., 

cover  with  the  resources  at 

its  command.  There  could  not  be  an  educated 
ministry  provided  or  supported  in  most  sec- 
tions of  the  mountains,  and  so  the  region  was 
thrown  upon  its  own  devices  as  it  sought  to 
secure  a  ministry. 

Since  educated  ministers  could  not  be 
found  or  supported  if  found,  men  without 
special  education  were  necessarily  made 
preachers.  The  denominations  that  did  not 
have  an  educational  standard  for  the  ministry 
took  the  places  of  the  absent  Presbyterians. 
A  great  number  of  these  ministers  served 
absolutely  without  compensation,  except  the 
reward  of  conscience  that  comes  to  men  who 
please  Christ.  None  of  them  received  any 
adequate  salary ;  and  so  preachers  were  farm- 
ers for  six  days  of  the  week.  They  or- 
ganized their  churches  and  the  Presbyterians 
in  the  mountains  united  with  those  churches. 

These  men  preached  the  gospel  with  all 


94  THE    SOUTHERN 

earnestness,  and  were  of  untold  benefit  to  the 
mountains  in  which  they  prosecuted  their 
simple-hearted  ministry.  The  pity  is  that 
their  number  was  inadequate  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  mountains.  Their  successors  are 
still  upholding  the  cause  of  Christ  in  the 
Appalachians,  and  they  deserve  generous  re- 
inforcement and  appreciative  recognition  at 
the  hands  of  all  Presbyterians. 

Since  there  was  a  general  lack  of  organized 
efforts  to  provide  the  gospel  for  all  the  sec- 
tions,   a   considerable   num- 
Some  Unchurched    i         c  ,-,.  •,  -,  ,    ,    ,. 

,_  .  . .  ber  of  thinly  populated  dis- 

Neighborhoods  *  £  r 

tncts  were  left  without  any 

religious  leadership  of  any  kind,  and  so  have 
remained  to  this  day.  The  deplorable  results 
of  such  deprivation  can  easily  be  imagined. 
And  in  such  communities  the  children  of  the 
Presbyterians,  to  their  sorrow,  shared  in  the 
heart-famine  that  prevailed. 

When   the    Presbyterians    in    the    remoter 
mountains  became  absorbed  in  the  denomina- 
tions  that   took   possession, 
The  Post-Pres-  /. 

so  far  as  any  possession  was 
bytenan  Age  ,  ,       *  5, 

taken,  they  did  not  cease  to 

impress  their  hereditary  influence  upon  the 
region  in  which  their  distinctive  name  was 
lost.  It  is  believed  that  they  contributed  to 
the  mountains  as  a  permanent  legacy  and 
reminder  of  their  existence  these  distinctive 


MOUNTAINEERS  95 

principles :  ( 1 )  The  supremacy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures; (2)  the  sovereignty  of  God;  (3) 
man's  direct  responsibility  to  God;  (4)  the 
vital  interest  of  theology;  (5)  the  Christian 
Sabbath;  and  (6)  the  dignity  of  the  indi- 
vidual. There  were  several  principles  that 
too  nearly  vanished  or  passed  into  eclipse  in 
the  mountains  with  the  passing  of  the  Pres- 
byterians. These  were:  (1)  The  imperative 
need  of  an  educated  ministry;  (2)  the  equally 
imperative  need  of  popular  education;  and 
(3)  the  supremely  imperative  need  of  the 
family  altar.  And  the  Presbyterians  of  to- 
day have  something  to  do  in  replacing  these 
losses  of  a  century  of  neglect. 


96       THE  SOUTHERN 


CHAPTER  IX 

PRESENT-DAY     PRESBYTERIANISM     AND     THE 
PROBLEM 

THE  formation,  the  analysis,  and  the  early 
Presbyterian  treatment  of  the  Appalachian 

problem  have  thus  far  en- 
How  Solve  the  d  attention.  But  a 

Problem  ? 

problem  exists  to  be  solved, 

just  as  a  proposition  of  Euclid  is  a  Q.  E.  D. 
The  all-important  question  then  is  before 
us — How  is  this  present  problem  to  reach 
solution  ? 

The  answer  is  simple  though  triple;  it  is 
this:  The  Appalachian  problem  is  to  be 
solved  by  means  of  three  agencies — the  de- 
velopment of  trade,  the  perfecting  of  the 
public  school  system  and  the  multiplication 
of  the  home  mission  agencies  of  the  various 
Churches  and  of  other  philanthropic  organ- 
izations. 

In  order  that  industry  and  energy  may 
have  full  development  and 
(i)  Development  exercise  in  the  Appalachians, 
labor  must  become  remu- 
nerative, wages  must  be  available,  markets 


BORLAND  INSTITUTE,  HOT  SPRINGS,  N.  C. 


MOUNTAINEERS  97 

must  become  accessible,  trade  must  flourish. 
Money  and  markets  will  be  two  mighty  mo- 
tives to  help  arouse  the  mountains  to  new 
life.  American  enterprise  may  safely  be 
trusted  to  provide  this  first-named  element  of 
the  solution  of  our  problem — that  is,  the  de- 
velopment of  trade. 

The  Appalachians  are  one  of  Nature's 
choicest  storehouses  of  treasures.  The  very 
air  and  water  are  assets,  and  make  the  moun- 
tains the  sanitarium  of  the  states  east  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  tide  of  immigration  is  be- 
ginning to  turn  from  the  West  to  the  South. 
Exploitation  companies  are  developing  the 
vast  timber  and  mineral  resources,  and  pros- 
pectors are  penetrating  every  recess  of  the 
mountains  in  search  of  new  investments  and 
hopeful  fields  of  operation,  and  their  search 
is  being  rewarded.  Railroads  and  even  white 
lines  of  turnpikes  are  beginning  to  penetrate 
the  mountains.  Mines  are  being  developed 
and  manufactures  established.  Even  the  soil 
will  in  many  places  yield  a  fair  reward  for 
the  labor  expended  upon  it. 

This  industrial  invasion  will  introduce 
much  evil,  but  it  will,  in  part  at  least,  prepare 
the  way  for  better  things.  It  will  break  up 
the  isolation.  Shiftlessness  will  disappear  if 
the  rewards  of  labor  are  forthcoming.  The 
days  of  no  trade  and  no  money  are  passing 


98  THE    SOUTHERN 

away.  The  mountaineer  sees  it,  dreads  it, 
and  will  profit  by  it. 

The  second  element  in  the  solution  of  the 
Appalachian  problem  is  the  perfecting  of  the 

public    school    system.      In 
(a)  Perfecting  of  r  .,  ,  .  , 

L  ...    _  .  most  of  the  states  in  winch 

Public  Schools 

this    Appalachian    range    is 

located,  there  is  a  marked  increase  of  interest 
and  effort  in  behalf  of  good  common  schools 
for  all  the  people  of  all  the  sections  of  the 
states.  Noble,  large-minded  leaders  are 
preaching  the  new  crusade  against  ignorance 
and  in  favor  of  public  instruction,  and  more 
and  more  of  the  people  and  of  their  legis- 
lators are  joining  the  crusading  armies. 
Increased  appropriations  are  being  made,  and 
improvements  in  the  system  of  public  schools 
are  being  introduced.  Progress  hitherto  has 
been  slow  and  delayed.  It  may  be  the  work 
of  a  generation  to  attain  to  a  satisfactory  sys- 
tem, but  every  patriot  must  trust  that  some- 
thing better  lies  in  store  for  the  children  of 
the  highlands.  Hope  deferred  has  made  the 
heart  sick;  but  now  a  better  day  is  surely 
dawning.  It  may  be  added  that  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  the  mountains  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  will  be  welcomed.  The  people 
want  it. 

The  other   element  in  the  solving  of  the 
problem    of    the   Appalachians    is    the    mul- 


MOUNTAINEERS  99 

tiplication  of  the  home  missionary  agencies  of 
the  Churches  and  of  the  other  philanthropic 

organizations.       Now    what 
(3)  Multiplication    share  in  thig          t  WQrk  the 

of  Home  Missions    T>      u   ,  v,,        ,     . 

.Presbyterian    Church   is   to 

have  is  a  matter  that  concerns  all  those  who 
love  the  old  Kirk. 

Is  there  any  special  phase  of  the  work  for 
which  our  Church  has  special  equipment  and 

adaptation?      What    is    the 

What  is  the  Mis-          •  i  /• 

-  special  mission  of  present- 
sion  of  Our  Church?   ,        „      ,          .     .     r  .     ., 
day  Presbyterianism  in  the 

Appalachians?  We  may  well  take  a  little 
time  to  blaze  out  our  course  over  the  moun- 
tains. It  is  a  happy  fact  that  we  have  but 
to  follow  the  course  of  the  Home  Board  as 
it  has  followed  the  leadings  of  Providence 
during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  to  find 
a  safe  trail  already  blazed  out  very  distinctly 
over  these  mountains  of  the  South. 

In    general,    the    mission    of    present-day 

Presbyterianism  in  the  Appalachians   is,   so 

far    as    in    it    lies,    to    dis- 

charge    here    as    elsewhere, 
Every  Creature        .,          ,  .         ,,    .       ~,    .  . , 
the      duty      that      Christ  s 

world-wide  commission  lays  upon  its  heart 
and  puts  into  its  hands.  The  apologies  that 
the  Church  owes  are  to  God  for  not  more 
promptly  carrying  its  share  of  the  gospel 
message  to  the  mountains,  and  are  not  to  any 


100  THE    SOUTHERN 

men  or  denomination  of  men  for  now  carry- 
ing it  there. 

The  present  duty  of  Presbyterianism  is 
also  to  discharge  the  debt  that  it  owes  its 

brethren  in  the  Appalach- 
To  Discharge  Debt  ian$  ft  owes  a  d 

to  Brethren  A  f, , 

brother  Americans  be- 
leaguered by  Nature  in  the  mountain  fast- 
nesses " ;  for  ours  is  a  national  Church,  with 
a  duty  to  perform  to  all  sections  of  the  land. 
It  owes  a  duty  to  the  descendants  of  the 
Scotch-Irishmen ;  for,  though  not  all  Presby- 
terians are  Scotch-Irish,  most  Scotch-Irish 
were  originally  and  even  yet  the  majority  are, 
by  principle  or  prejudice  or  tradition,  Pres- 
byterians; and  Presbyterianism  exercises  but 
common  sense  in  recognizing  that  fact.  It 
certainly  owes  a  peculiar  duty  to  the  de- 
scendants of  a  Presbyterian  ancestry,  to  us 
the  proudest  lineage  on  earth.  "  Blood  is 
thicker  than  water."  The  Presbyterians  of 
these  halcyon^1  days  of  Presbyterian  strength 
and  achievement  should  do  what  their  hard- 
pressed  fathers  longed  to  do,  but  were  pre- 
vented by  their  providential  limitations  from 
being  able  to  do. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  is  the  broadest 
and  most  tolerant  in  Christendom.  It  would 
not  reenter  the  mountains  with  any  spirit  of 
denominational  zeal  or  with  any  word  of  de- 


MOUNTAINEERS  101 

preciation  of  the  other  Churches  of  the  Appa- 
lachians.       Besides     being     unchristlike,     it 
would  be  exceedingly  out  of 

keeping  with  the  proprieties 
Denominations  f5  f  •*•  • 

of  the  case  for  us  to  criticize 

the    brethren    that    have    "  tarried    by    the 
stuff." 

Rather  do  we  turn  with  deep  gratitude  to 
the  faithful  servants  of  Christ,  of  whatever 
name,  who  have  cared  for  the  religious  in- 
terests of  the  Appalachians  in  spite  of  diffi- 
culties that  have  tried  men's  souls.  It  is  the 
duty  of  present-day  Presbyterianism  to  run 
to  the  aid  of  our  hard-pressed  brethren  of 
other  denominations  and  contribute  to  the 
common  cause  that  which  will  make  their 
work  far  more  effective  and  satisfactory, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  introduces  a  fresh 
body  of  workers  into  a  region  where  the  force 
now  employed  is  on  every  hand  confessed  to 
be  pitifully  inadequate. 

The  time-honored  means  of  preaching  and 
teaching  the  Word  by  evangelism  and  Sab- 
bath-school   are    of    course 
To  Employ,  in  .1  .   . 

V  necessary  in  the  mountains. 

Part,  Usual  ,       *  . ,.    • 

M  ..    ,  as  elsewhere.      I  he  holding 

of  tent  meetings  has  re- 
cently been  of  service  in  gathering  together 
new  congregations  for  organization  into 
churches;  and  the  efficient  missionaries  of  our 


102  THE    SOUTHERN 

Sabbath-school  Board  have  organized  and 
fostered  many  Sabbath-schools,  sometimes  in 
regions  where  there  had  never  been  such 
schools.  For  the  organization  of  churches,  no 
more  speedy  or  efficacious  means  can  be  em- 
ployed than  are  those  put  into  practice  by 
the  heroic  and  energetic  missionaries  of  the 
Sabbath-school  Board.  And  here  valuable  as- 
sistance is  also  rendered  the  other  denomina- 
tions, who  oftentimes  are  greatly  benefited 
by  the  services  given  by  our  Sabbath-school 
missionaries.  This  phase  of  Christian  work 
needs  to  be  indefinitely  increased  in  view  of 
the  providential  favor  that  has  been  mani- 
fested to  it. 

The  organization  of  a  Presbyterian  church 
in  the  mountains,  however,  should  mean  more 
than  the  organization  of  a  nucleus  of  ill  in- 
doctrinated or  untrained  church  members  to 
be  ministered  to  once  or  twice  a  month.  It 
should  rather  create  a  center  where  earnest 
and  all-the-year-round  efforts  should  be  made 
by  every  method  known  to  the  wise  winner 
of  souls  to  render  it  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  a  light 
set  on  a  stand. 

No  less  than  in  other  communities  does  the 
pastor  here  need  to  be  a  shepherd,  safefold- 
ing  his  flock  from  grievous  wolves.  Here 
no  less  than  elsewhere  is  the  Bible-reader  and 
catechist  justified  by  the  results  of  her  work. 


MOUNTAINEERS  103 

A  permanent,  shining  Presbyterian  church 
will  be  one  of  the  greatest  contributions  to  a 
mountain  county  that  our  zealous  Church  can 
make;  and  the  benefit  rendered  will  be  many 
fold  greater  than  can  be  computed  merely  in 
terms  of  advantage  to  the  mother  Church  that 
established  it. 

The    Presbyterian    Church,    however,    has 

reached  a  practical  consensus  of  opinion  as 

to  what  is  its  chief  mission 

But,  Principally,     in  ^  southern  mountains. 

to  Educate  „,    .       .    .        .  , 

That  mission  is  to  educate, 

to  provide  Christian  education  for  the  young. 
This  is,  of  course,  recognized  as  an  excep- 
tional case. 

Usually  the  Church  looks  upon  itself  as  an 
evangelizing  agency.  But  in  the  Appalach- 
ians it  recognizes  the  fact  that  here  the  most 
successful  way  to  contribute  to  the  coming  of 
the  glad  day  when  the  mountains  will  be  fully 
evangelized  is  to  educate  the  young  people 
of  the  mountains.  What  hope  of  building  up 
good  Presbyterianism  or  good  Christianity  of 
any  type  if  the  majority  of  the  people  can- 
not read,  or  search  the  Scriptures  that  testify 
of  Christ?  What  hope  of  founding  a  sub- 
stantial work  so  long  as  no  educated  leaders 
exist  with  desire  for  improvement  and  prog- 
ress? It  is  evident  that  the  Appalachian 
worker  must  lay  broad  and  deep  the  founda- 


104  THE    SOUTHERN 

tion  of  education  and  intelligence  before  he 
can  erect  a  permanent  Christian  church  that 
shall  largely  improve  the  people  for  whose 
good  it  is  consecrated. 

When  this  Presbyterian  policy  was  at  first 
in  process  of  formulation,  some  of  our  people 

were  uneasy  lest  the  Church 
Not  Usurping  .  ht  pervert  its  funds  in 

Functions  of  State  TT  ,     .,    .    .,       c. 

doing  work  that  the   state 

is  supposed  to  do.  But  such  doubters  have 
now  come  to  see  that  in  this  respect  the 
southern  mountaineers  are  an  exceptional  pop- 
ulation, and  need  an  exceptional  treatment; 
and  that  the  speediest  way  to  revolutionize 
the  region  they  inhabit  is  to  give  a  large 
body  of  the  young  people  such  a  thorough 
Christian  education  and  religious  training  as 
will  render  them  the  great  evangelizing  and 
elevating  force  of  the  future;  and  that  the 
states  involved  are  not  yet  giving  even  the 
"  flatwoods  "  at  all  adequate  schools,  and  that 
they  can  never  give  the  Christian  education 
and  religious  training  so  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  the  new  mountains  that  all  Chris- 
tian patriots  wish  to  see.  And  as  the  work 
has  been  to  some  extent  developed,  the  work- 
ers have  not  merely  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  young  people  that  have  been 
reached  vastly  benefited  by  the  privileges  af- 
forded them,  but  have  also  been  deeply 


MOUNTAINEERS  105 

gratified  by  the  reflex  influence  of  the  efforts 
made  by  the  Church,  as  they  have  stimulated 
the  civil  authorities  to  do  more  than  they  had 
been  doing.  So  long  as  our  schools  supple- 
ment schools  of  only  two  or  three  months' 
duration,  there  can  be  no  question  in  any 
quarter  that  the  work  done  by  these  agencies 
of  ours  is  not  merely  Christian  but  magnifi- 
cently philanthropic. 

The  bane  of  the  mountains  is  due  to  the 
•S[    absence  of  education  and  Christian  education 

at  that;  and  the  remedy  for 
Schools  the  Key      ^  eyilg  ^  exigt  go  f  M  &g 


to  the  Situation       .,  ,      .          , 

there  is  a  remedy,  is  to  be 

found  in  Christian  education.  This  fact  is 
keenly  appreciated  by  the  discerning  ones  in 
the  mountains,  and  they  eagerly  long  for  the 
wondrous  panacea  for  their  ills.  The  broad- 
minded  ones  will  welcome  and  encourage  and 
aid  all  efforts  made  by  any  Church  to  con- 
tribute what  it  may  to  the  education  of  the 
mountains. 

The  people  of  the  Appalachians  will  hear 
their  own  sons  as  they  speak  of  needed  ad- 

vance    and     improvements  ; 
Schools  Will  Train  fcut  ^       ^  ^^  ^ 

the  Leaders  _., 

strangers.      They    are    too 

proud-spirited  to  do  so.  The  schools,  then, 
are  the  best  means  for  reaching  comprehen- 
sively and  collectively  our  brothers  of  the 


106  THE    SOUTHERN 

mountains.  The  schools  will  create  the  new 
generation  that,  as  Grady  said  of  the  New 
South,  will  see  "  their  mountains  showering 
down  the  music  of  bells,  as  their  slow-moving 
flocks  and  herds  go  forth  from  their  folds; 
their  rulers  honest  and  their  people  loving, 
and  their  homes  happy,  and  their  hearth- 
stones bright,  and  their  conscience  clear." 
They  will  mold  public  opinion  and  change 
time  immemorial  conservatism,  and  intro- 
duce the  best  and  most  wholesome  gifts  that 
the  modern  world  can  put  into  church  and 
home  and  heart. 

Such  Christian  schools  best  pay  the  debt 
we    owe    to    the    Churches    that    have    been 

left  comparatively  alone  in 
And  Pay  a  Debt  to  ^  mountains<     Their  best 

Other  Churches  ,  ,  ,.  .,    . 

workers  and  many  of  their 

ministers  will  receive  the  benefits  of  these 
Presbyterian  schools.  And  as  we  gladly 
train  their  workers  for  the  common  service  of 
our  Lord  and  his  mountain  vineyard,  there 
will  disappear  from  men's  hearts  the  fear 
that  we  are  merely  a  proselyting  agency, 
seeking  our  own  advancement  in  the  way  of 
territorial  expansion  or  numerical  growth. 
The  mere  fact  that  for  various  reasons  some 
will  not  appreciate  the  educational  invasion, 
and  that  others  may  be  expected  even  to 
antagonize  it  with  all  the  means  in  their 


MOUNTAINEERS  107 

power,  will  not  prevent  the  service  rendered 
from  being  a  real  and  far-reaching  one. 

Another  happy  result  of  the  carrying  out 
of  this  mission  of  present-day  Presbyterian- 
ism    will    be    to    stimulate 
And  Stimulate  to     other  denominations  on  the 
Similar  Work  ,,  , ,         ,  f  ., 

field    and    away    from    the 

field  to  similar  efforts  to  afford  the  Appalach- 
ian youth  the  Christian  education  that  they 
so  much  desire.  This  is  an  indirect  result 
of  Presbyterian  efforts,  but  one  that  should 
be  hopefully  looked  for  by  the  Church;  for 
thus  Christian  education  is  extended  to  the 
rising  generation  in  the  mountains,  and  the 
common  cause  of  the  Lord  of  the  mountains 
is  conserved. 

What  matters  it  if  credit  be  not  always 

given  to  the  real  cause,  and  even  ingratitude 

sometimes     greet    the    best 

sacrifices  the  Board  and  its 
More  Light  ,  ,    .      T 

workers  can  make?     Jesus, 

our  Master,  was  kind,  for  love's  sake,  to  the 
unthankful.  The  great  heart  of  the  moun- 
tain people  will  beat  gratefully,  and  the  fu- 
ture will  cheerfully  acknowledge  the  debt  it 
owes  to  the  old  Church  of  their  fathers. 
The  statistics  of  the  good  done  by  the  Church 
will  be  accurately  kept  in  heaven,  even  if 
much  of  it  does  not  find  tabulation  in  the 
"  Minutes  of  the  General  Assembly." 


108  THE    SOUTHERN 


CHAPTER    X 

THE     DAY-SCHOOLS 

THE  entire  Presbyterian  Church  should 
acquaint  itself  with  the  magnitude  of  the 

school  work  conducted  in 
A  Notable  .,  .,  ,  .  , ,  j 

the  southern  highlands  un- 
School  System 

der    the     direction     of     its 

accredited  agents,  who  have  by  heroic  and 
herculean  labors  built  up  an  Appalachian 
Presbyterian  school  system  that  is  the  pride 
of  the  mountains  and  that  ought  to  be  the 
pride  of  the  Church.  The  colleges,  most  of 
them,  were  founded  by  the  pioneers,  and  are 
venerable  in  age  and  service;  but  almost  all 
the  rest  of  the  noble  roster  of  schools  have 
been  organized  within  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century. 

The  Board  of  Home  Missions  and  its  offi- 
cers have  been  unswerving  in  their  devotion 
to  the  service  of  the  mountaineers.  The 
synodical  superintendents  and  the  superin- 
tendent of  Sabbath-school  Work  have  counted 
no  labor  too  arduous  for  them,  and  have  zeal- 
ously assumed  personal  obligations,  and  raised 


MOUNTAINEERS  109 

special  funds  to  continue  or  to  advance  the 
work  dear  to  their  hearts.  The  rank  and  the 
file  of  the  mountain  workers,  a  consecrated 
band  of  ministers,  teachers,  Sabbath-school 
missionaries,  and  Bible-readers,  have  toiled 
and  moiled,  planned  and  executed,  struggled 
and  triumphed  in  the  cause  that  led  them 
often  far  from  home,  but  always  near  to  Na- 
ture's heart  and  humanity's  heart  and  the 
great  heart  of  God.  No  wonder  that  a  cause 
championed  by  brave  souls  should  prosper 
bravely  even  beyond  human  expectation. 

If  we  leave  out  of  account  the  colleges, 
which  are  not  connected  with  the  operations 

of  the  Home  Mission  Board, 
A  Triple  System      it  ^  be  geen  ^  Home 

Missions  have  evolved  a  triple  system  of 
schools:  (1)  Primary  or  day-schools;  (2) 
academies  and  boarding-schools;  (3)  normal 
schools.  The  day-schools  first  call  for  our 
notice. 

A  remote  mountain  community  has  no  pub- 
lic school  and  has  never  had  any;  or,  if  it 

has  had  any,  the  school  was 
Day-schools-  Qne   of        ,      &   fgw   weeks> 

Their  Genesis  ,       ..  \     ,  .,       ,.,, 

duration.     And  the  children 

live  on  and  exist,  but  do  not  develop.  Tidings 
come  by  some  mysterious  Appalachian  wire- 
less telegraphy,  announcing  that  the  people 
of  T'other  Mountain  or  somewhere  beyond 


110  THE    SOUTHERN 

the  barriers  have  had  an  eight  months'  school 
taught  by  some  women  that  came  there  to 
live;  and  the  tidings  report,  too,  the  beneficial 
effect  the  school  has  had  upon  the  children. 
And  chimney-corner  councils  are  held,  and 
meditative  pipes  are  smoked;  and  so  one  day 
the  cause  of  the  children  sends  out  an  em- 
bassy to  beg  for  a  school  for  Daddy's  Moun- 
tain, too.  And  the  good  mission  teachers  of 
T'other  Mountain  are  touched  by  the  awk- 
ward but  eloquent  plea  for  the  unknown 
children,  and  they  write  a  letter. 

In  the  course  of  time,  a  man  with  a  mule 
reaches  the  mountain.  Both  the  man  and  the 
mule  have  an  interrogative  air  about  them. 
Did  circuit-riders  ever  reach  that  wilderness, 
the  man  might  be  a  circuit-rider.  But,  in 
fact,  he  is  a  Presbyterian  preacher,  perhaps 
the  synodical  superintendent  himself.  He  in- 
vestigates the  needs  of  the  field ;  and  the 
people  readily  promise  to  give  some  land, 
and  perhaps  to  build  a  temporary  cabin  home 
and  a  cabin  schoolhouse.  Then  the  mule  and 
the  man  pick  their  slippery  way  down  the 
rocky  trail  and  disappear.  "  Out  in  the  flat- 
woods  "  things  happen — Presbyterian  system 
makes  them  happen — until,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  the  epochal  event  takes  place:  a 
teacher  and  her  helper  reach  the  spruce-pine 
cabins  and  begin  to  live  for  the  rising  genera- 


MOUNTAINEERS  111 

tion  of  Daddy's  Mountain.  "  God  made  two 
great  lights.  And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the 
fourth  day." 

There  are  now  on  Daddy's  Mountain  all 
the    elements    that    are   needed    for    such    a 

renaissance  as  the  old  dead 
Conditions  of  the  1.1  j  j  mi 

mass  has  long  needed.  The 
Renaissance  ,  „  J 

advent    of    the    miners,    or 

even  of  the  sawmill  man  and  his  godless 
"  hands,"  has  sometimes  transformed  a 
"  Sleepy  Hollow  "  into  an  amphitheater  of 
revelry  by  the  introduction  of  wild  reckless- 
ness and  the  vices  of  the  valley.  But  the 
coming  of  the  teachers  means  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  community. 

Everything  that  is  best  in  our  civilization 
centers  about  the  Christian  home.    The  teach- 

ers ere  long  have  a  neat 
(i)  A  Model  Home  ,  .,  .  , 

cottage  home  that  becomes, 

in  its  furnishings,  its  comfort,  its  neatness, 
and  its  genuine  homelikeness,  an  ideal  and  a 
model  for  the  people  that  come  from  far  and 
near  to  see  it  for  themselves. 

The  consecrated  lives  in  the  cottage,  how- 
ever, are  the  principal  agents  in  the  renais- 

sance of  Daddy's  Moun- 
(a)  The  Teachers'  ^  The  iritual  forces 


Consecrated  Lives       ,.  .,         ,  .  .i_     i_ 

of  these  lives  are  the  heav- 

enly   dynamics    that    God    employs    in    the 


112  THE    SOUTHERN 

vitalizing  of  dead  lives  and  the  quickening 
of  inert  purposes.  The  most  observant  eyes 
on  earth  surely  must  be  those  that  all  day 
long,  with  X-ray  penetrativeness,  observe 
these  teachers.  And  when  those  eyes  see  in 
the  heart  of  the  teachers  unselfishness  and 
genuineness  and  Christlikeness,  they  brighten 
with  hope  and  emulation.  Of  none  is  it  true 
more  completely  or  in  more  senses  than  of 
these  teachers,  that  they  do  not  "  live  unto 
themselves  " ;  they  could  not  do  so  if  they 
would. 

Though  the  strongest  influence  these  teach- 
ers exert  is  the  silent  influence  of  their  daily 

lives,    their    words    have    a 
(3)  Instruction  in  such  flg   ^  ^  m_ 

School  and  Home         ,.  ..     .    ,  ... 

sophisticated       communities 

would  be  utterly  inconceivable.  They  become 
the  oracles  of  the  children  and,  to  a  consid- 
erable extent,  the  authority  of  the  adults. 
They  open  the  book  world — and  that  is,  after 
all,  the  entire  world — to  the  delighted  eyes 
of  their  pupils.  To  have  a  tabula  rasa  put 
into  their  hands  for  such  inscriptions  as  they 
may  choose  to  write  makes  their  work  a  seri- 
ous responsibility,  but  also  awakens  an  en- 
thusiasm that  nerves  them  in  their  isolation. 
The  pupils  have  little  to  distract  their  atten- 
tion, and  make  most  cheering  progress. 
The  activities  of  the  teachers  are  by  no 


MOUNTAINEERS  113 

means  confined  to  the  schoolroom.  Even 
there  the  work  is  as  diversified  as  the  time 
and  strength  of  the  teachers  will  allow.  In- 
dustrial instruction  is  being  developed,  and 
an  inexpensive  method  of  industrial  training 
is  being  introduced  by  transferable  teachers. 
Christian  settlement  work,  the  only  kind 
worth  much,  has  its  many  opportunities  of 
service  amid  homes  of  want  and  sickness  and 
sorrow.  Zenana  work  may  seem  more  unique, 
but  it  can  hardly  be  more  useful  than  is  the 
house-to-house  visitation  on  Saturdays  and  on 
other  providential  days.  Mothers'  meetings 
arouse  maternal  hearts,  and  thus  in  turn  bless 
the  boys  and  the  girls  at  home.  The  day- 
school  work  is  indeed  diversified  and  rich 
enough  to  satisfy  all  one's  missionary  am- 
bitions. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  and  its  mountain 
teachers  believe  that  the  entrance  of  God's 

words  giveth  light;  and  so 
(4)  Bible  Study 

they  make  every  day-school 

a  Bible-school.  Every  day's  work  contains 
its  study  of  the  Book  of  books.  The  synod- 
ical  superintendent  of  Tennessee,  the  Rev.  C. 
A.  Duncan,  D.D.,  has  prepared  an  eight 
years'  Bible  .  course  for  the  home  mission 
schools  of  the  Synod  of  Tennessee.  The  pri- 
mary grades  of  this  course  are  being  taught 
in  the  day-schools  of  the  synod.  The  mem- 


114  THE    SOUTHERN 

ories  and  the  hearts  of  the  children  are  being 
enriched  with  the  truth  of  God. 

The  morning's  work  is  opened  with  rever- 
ent worship  and  religious  instruction ;  and  the 

whole  day's  work  is  per- 
(5)  Religious  meated  w.th  the  irit  of 

Instruction  ,     ,.  ~,    .  ,, 

obedience  to  Christ  s  in- 
junction, "  Feed  my  lambs."  Then,  too, 
once  or  twice  a  month  the  nearest  Presby- 
terian minister  comes  and  holds  services  in 
the  schoolhouse,  with  the  mountainside  gath- 
ered about  him.  Occasionally,  too,  the 
Sabbath-school  missionary  visits  Daddy's 
Mountain,  and  reinforces  with  all  his  might 
the  Sabbath-school  of  the  mission  settlement. 
Thus  do  all  branches  of  the  work  unite  in 
one  common  flood  of  blessing  for  the  neigh- 
borhood and  the  school.  And  thus  is  ushered 
in  the  new  generation  on  the  old  mountain. 

The  results   of  a  day-school  appear  with 
almost  miraculous  swiftness.     The  influence 

of  the  school  appears  first 
Results :  (i)  Com-  ...  .  .  .*/  , 

munity  Aroused       of  a11  m  the  chlldren>  but  lfc 
is  not  long  until  the  entire 

community  reveals  a  new  movement  and  life 
and  ambition.  The  women  "  red  up "  the 
cabins,  and  the  men  begin  at  least  to  plan  for 
something  new  on  the  farm.  Windows  ap- 
pear in  the  cabin  homes.  Morals  tone  up, 
and  temperance  men  grow  aggressive.  The 


MOUNTAINEERS  115 

Sabbath  becomes  a  marked  day,  and  every 
day  has  sung  into  it  the  new  songs  of  hope 
and  activity.  The  people  have  heard  the 
sound  of  a  going  in  the  tops  of  the  trees, 
and  have  bestirred  themselves. 

Of  course  the  school  must  encounter  op- 

position and  misunderstandings.     There  are 

prej  udices   of   conservatism 

°     PC°Ple          that  W°uld  n0t  be  disturbed> 


Heled 

and   of   inertia   that   would 

not  move,  and  of  pride  that  is  hurt.  But  the 
difficulties  are  not  greater  than  are  those  that 
must  be  met  in  city  mission  work.  Much  of 
this  opposition  is  honest  and  can  be  over- 
come ;  such  part  of  it  as  is  selfish  must  be  en- 
dured in  the  strength  that  God  gives.  But 
where  the  children  go  the  hearts  of  the 
parents  follow,  even  if  at  a  distance;  and  so 
the  older  people,  too,  are  influenced  by  the 
teachers,  who  instruct  them  principally  by 
proxy.  And  they  are  helped  so  far  as  adults 
fixed  in  their  ways  can  be  helped.  And  many 
appreciate  the  teachers  as  they  deserve  to  be 
appreciated,  namely,  whole-heartedly. 

However,     the     principal     effect    of    the 
schools,  as  was  to  be  expected  and  desired,  is 

found  to  be  in  transforming 
(3)  Young  People     the  ngw  generation  the  hope 

Transformed  *  *x    .a^.  A   e 

of  the  future.     A  few  years 

of  day-school  life  put  lights  of  intelligence 


116  THE    SOUTHERN 

flashing  in  their  eyes,  irradiating  their  minds, 
and  illumining  their  hearts;  for  God's  will 
has  been  done,  and  there  is  light !  Instead  of 
aimlessness,  a  definite  mission  is  theirs !  Life 
has  possibilities  and  opportunities  for  them. 
And,  while  all  step  up  to  higher  thoughts  and 
deeds  than  were  their  fathers',  some  look  out 
beyond  the  tree  tops  and  mountain  ridges 
toward  a  higher  school  of  which  they  have 
heard.  And  now  and  then,  by  the  election  of 
God  and  God's  children,  one  of  them  is  led 
off  of  Daddy's  Mountain,  out  to  that  higher 
school  to  prepare  for — God  knows  what. 

In  the  course  of  the  years,  the  people  call 
for  a  church  organization;  and  so  the  far-off 

presbytery  is  communicated 
(4)  Usually  Church  ^    jmd  the  desire  of  ^ 

Established 

people  is   granted,  and  the 

church  is  founded.  And  now  to  the  teachers' 
home  and  the  schoolhouse  there  is  added  a 
church  house,  to  prepare  them  the  more  fully 
for  that  home  of  the  soul  of  which  the  pupils 
have  learned  so  much  since  the  teachers  came 
to  Daddy's  Mountain. 

And  all  this  change  has  taken  place  in  a 
few  short  years;  for  in  the  Appalachians  men 
do  not  have  to  wait,  in  the  day-school 
work,  so  very  many  days  for  the  finding  of 
the  bread  they  have  cast  upon  the  waters. 
The  harvest  is  speedy. 


MOUNTAINEERS  117 

A   minister   of   another   denomination  has 
written   the    following    tribute   to    the    day- 
school:   "No   one   who  has 

*        observed    the    P™gress    of 
the    schools    established    by 

the  Northern  Presbyterian  Church  can  fail  to 
be  impressed  with  the  wonderful  transforma- 
tion they  are  working.  I  remember  having 
sent  an  appointment  to  preach  at  a  school- 
house  in  a  community  that  I  had  never  before 
visited.  It  was  in  a  remote  country  district, 
and  I  expected  to  find  a  rude,  ill-favored 
people,  rough  in  voice,  manners,  and  dress, 
such  as  I  had  frequently  met  in  this  section 
before.  Arriving  at  the  place  a  few  minutes 
before  the  hour  for  preaching,  I  thought  I 
was  to  have  no  congregation,  because  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  see  the  people  stand  in 
crowds  around  the  church  door  and  chew 
tobacco  and  crack  rude  jokes  until  the  pre- 
liminary services  were  over  and  the  minister 
was  ready  to  commence  the  sermon. 

"  On  this  occasion  no  one  was  to  be  seen, 
but  as  I  dismounted  a  handsome,  bright-eyed 
youth  came  out  and  introduced  himself  with 
an  easy  grace  unusual  in  one  reared  in  a  re- 
mote country  home.  I  remarked  to  him  that 
I  supposed  my  congregation  would  be  small, 
judging  from  the  present  outlook.  He  in- 
formed me,  however,  that  the  house  was  full. 


118  THE    SOUTHERN 

"  I  entered  the  building  and  to  my  aston- 
ishment faced  as  neatly  dressed  and  intelli- 
gent an  audience  as  you  usually  see.  I  was 
astonished  when  I  heard  them  sing,  and  I 
could  hardly  preach  for  wondering  at  the 
evidences  of  refinement,  intelligence,  and 
good  taste  before  me.  When  the  service  was 
over,  three  or  four  bright,  intelligent  ladies 
came  forward,  introduced  themselves,  and 
told  me  they  were  conducting  a  school  there 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  appearance  of  the  population 
had  been  transformed  in  a  few  years  by  this 
school. 

"If  Christian  philanthropists  all  over  the 
country  could  really  understand  the  fruitful 
field  that  lies  before  them  in  this  section,  they 
would  not  stop  until  a  model  home  and  a 
model  school  were  maintained  in  every  com- 
munity. Some  denominations  have  spent  all 
their  energy  and  their  money  in  this  section 
in  evangelistic  work.  Evangelistic  work  is 
well,  but  it  is  of  little  use  to  get  people  con- 
verted unless  you  put  into  operation  some 
means  by  which  to  develop  them  in  piety,  and 
instruct  them  in  the  practical  duties  of  Chris- 
tian life." 

An  efficient  evangelizing  agency  akin  to 
the  school,  but  employed  when  schools  are 
not  yet  possible,  is  found  in  the  Bible-read- 


MOUNTAINEERS  119 

ers.  First  used  in  West  Virginia  by  the  Rev. 
Christopher  Humble,  M.D.,  superintendent 
of  Sabbath-school  missions 
in  the  southern  Appalachi- 
ans, they  are  now  used  both  by  the  Board  of 
Home  Missions  and  the  Board  of  Publication 
and  Sabbath-school  Work.  In  1905  the 
Home  Board  had  thirty  commissioned  Bible- 
readers.  Dr.  Duncan  gives  the  following 
outline  of  the  methods  they  pursue: 

"  The  women  employed  as  Bible-readers 
establish  a  model  home  where  Christ  is  first 
in  all  things.  The  house  is  inexpensive,  yet 
neat  and  comfortable.  It  is  kept  clean  within 
and  without.  Great  care  is  taken  to  comply 
with  all  sanitary  conditions.  Choice  flowers 
bloom  in  the  yard,  and  the  premises  are  made 
as  attractive  as  possible.  Mothers'  meetings 
for  prayer  and  Bible  study,  sewing  of  gar- 
ments and  helpful  conversation,  are  held  in 
this  home.  Then  the  homes  of  the  people  are 
visited,  the  sick  and  dying  are  ministered  to, 
and  words  of  comfort  are  spoken  to  the  be- 
reaved. In  some  instances  medicines  are  sup- 
plied and  administered.  The  Sabbaths  are 
full  of  work,  these  women  often  superintend- 
ing the  Sabbath-school,  leading  the  singing, 
and  doing  most  of  the  teaching.  Then  there 
is  the  young  people's  meeting  and  the  prayer- 
meeting  work.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  our 


120  THE    SOUTHERN 

Saviour  were  here  on  earth  he  would  be  doing 
just  such  work  as  these  good  women." 

The  first  day-school  under  the  Board  of 
Home  Missions  was  established  in  June, 
1879-  In  May,  1905,  the 
superintendent  of  mission 
school  work  reported  mountain  missions  and 
schools  of  all  kinds  under  the  Board's  care 
as  being  6l ;  missionaries  and  teachers,  181; 
boarding  pupils,  871;  day  pupils,  3,522 
(total,  4,393);  Sabbath-schools,  67;  Sabbath- 
school  scholars,  3,514;  members  of  young 
people's  societies,  1,555;  number  of  conver- 
sions, 243. 


MOUNTAINEERS  121 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE     ACADEMIES     AND     BOARDING-SCHOOLS 

THE  establishment  of  day-schools  in  the 
remoter  rural  districts  is  justified  by  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  which  is  especially  in- 
terested in  the  individual  and  in  the  unfortu- 
nate. And  God  has  set  his  seal  of  approval 
upon  this  form  of  his  Church's  activity. 

Christian  statesmanship,  however,  calls  also 
for  the  occupation  of  whatever  centers  of 
population  may  exist.  Life 
The  Strategic  proceeds  from  the  heart  to 
County  Seat  the  extremities.  Thus  the 

Church  has  always  reasoned,  and  so  has  occu- 
pied the  strategic  points  that  command  other 
points.  The  pioneers  established  their  acad- 
emies, if  in  the  country — there  was  little  but 
country  in  their  day — at  any  rate  in  the  most 
thickly  settled  parts  of  the  frontier.  The 
mountain  county  seat  is  sometimes  only  a  vil- 
lage, but  is  always  the  largest  place  within 
the  county  limits.  From  it  roads  radiate  to 
all  the  civil  districts  of  the  county.  Its 
character  affects  the  entire  county.  Capture 


122  THE    SOUTHERN 

for  education  and  morality  the  people  within 
sight  of  the  court-house,  and  the  county  itself 
will  ere  long  also  capitulate. 

These  facts  have  led  our  mountain  synods 
and  presbyteries  and  their  synodical  superin- 
tendents —  especially  those 
Presbyterial  men  of  apostolic  iabors   fre 


Academies  „  ~       ,,      ,,  ~       ,, 

Rev.      Donald      McDonald, 

D.D.,  superintendent  for  Kentucky,  and  the 
Rev.  Calvin  A.  Duncan,  D.D.,  superintendent 
for  Tennessee  —  to  endeavor  to  locate  in  the 
county  seat  of  each  mountain  county  desti- 
titute  of  such  a  school  a  Presbyterian  academy 
either  under  presbyterial  control  or  under 
the  control  of  the  Board  of  Home  Mis- 
sions. In  1887  the  Synod  of  Tennessee  had 
nine  such  academies  under  the  care  of  its 
presbyteries.  The  local  friends,  aided  to 
some  extent  from  abroad,  provided  the  neces- 
sary buildings;  while  the  modest  sums  re- 
quired for  current  expenses  were  secured 
from  tuition,  donations,  the  Board  of  Aid  for 
Colleges  and  Academies,  self-denial  —  and 
always  faith.  The  property  of  some  of 
these  academies  has  since  that  time  been  con- 
veyed to  the  Board  of  Home  Missions,  and 
the  schools  have  become  "  day-schools,"  but 
of  a  high  grade. 

In    1905    there    were    within    the    limits 
of    the    Appalachians    and    of    the    Synods 


MOUNTAINEERS 

of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  nineteen  acad- 
emies and  boarding-schools,  all  Presbyterian, 

though  not  all  of  them  con- 
Academies  and  of 


Boarding-schools      TT          ,,.     .  „,, 

Home  Missions.     Inere  are 

also  several  listed  by  the  Synod  of  Ten- 
nessee as  "  day-schools  "  that  have  done  and 
are  doing  academic  work;  they  are  Grassy 
Cove,  Huntsville,  Sneedville,  Elizabethton 
(Harold  McCormick  School),  Flag  Pond, 
Erwin  (John  Dwight  School),  and  Marshall. 
So  there  may  be  said  to  be  twenty-six  schools, 
aside  from  the  preparatory  departments  of 
the  colleges,  where  an  academic  education  can 
be  secured.  And  many  people  in  the  moun- 
tains of  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  North 
Carolina  would  be  bereft  indeed  were  they 
to  lose  these  schools  and  the  opportunities 
afforded  by  them. 

As  the  Presbyterian  patriot  reads  the  dis- 

tressing statistics  that  the  Southern  Educa- 

tion    Board    has    collected 

regarding    these    mountain 
Such  Centers  ,  ,       , 

counties    and    as    he    hears 

that  Board's  clarion  call  to  patriotic  action  in 
behalf  of  these  counties,  he  may  experience  a 
sense  of  solid  satisfaction  in  the  knowledge 
that  one  division  of  the  old  Kirk  that  boasted 
Knox  and  his  school  system  has  made  this 
substantial  and  beneficent  contribution  to  the 


124  THE    SOUTHERN 

educational  interests  of  nearly  thirty  counties 
of  the  Scotch  highlands  of  America.  As  men 
count  polls,  the  mountain  synods  connected 
with  the  Northern  Assembly  are  but  a  feeble 
folk;  but  nevertheless  they  have  large  love 
for  the  mountains,  and  they  have  behind  them 
a  mighty  Church  that  also  feels  "  the  call  of 
the  blood,"  and  behind  much  of  the  work 
stands  a  sympathetic  Home  Board  which 
knows  no  points  of  the  compass,  but  believes 
that  only  the  farthest  sweep  of  America's 
horizon  should  mark  out  the  limits  of  our 
Lord's  American  domain. 

The  purpose  sought  in  the  establishment 

of  the  schools  of  high  grade  is  the  same  as 

in    the    case    of    the    day- 

Policy  and  Purpose  schools_to  train  Christians 

for  life's  opportunities.  The  policy  is  to 
make  each  academy  and  boarding-school  a 
center  of  influence  in  all  the  county  or  region 
from  which  the  students  gather;  to  train  new 
envoys  of  intelligence  and  send  them  out  into 
many  neighborhoods  to  pass  the  truth  and 
training  on  to  their  friends;  and  thus  to  ex- 
emplify the  cheering  truth  of  mathematics — 
that  ten  times  one  is  ten. 

The  different  schools  have  plants  varying 
in  cost  from  $3,000  to  $67,- 
500,  or  $122,000  if  we  in- 
clude the  Asheville  Normal  and  Collegiate  In- 


MOUNTAINEERS  125 

stitute.  The  local  contributions  in  some 
places  have  been  considerable,  but  in  the  case 
of  most  of  the  schools  under  the  direct  care 
of  the  Home  Board,  the  money  has  largely 
come  from  the  benevolent  givers  of  other  sec- 
tions. In  the  construction  of  the  buildings, 
everything  has  been  made  to  yield  to  consid- 
erations of  utility.  Plain  as  the  county 
academies  are,  however,  they  seem  consider- 
able indeed  to  their  students,  and  are  usually 
known  throughout  their  counties  as  "  col- 
leges." 

The  teachers  are  carefully  chosen  for 
their  happy  blending  of  scholarship,  teach- 
ing ability,  genuine  charac- 
Teachers  ter^  and  Christian  devo- 

tion. They  enter  upon  their  work  in  the  fear 
of  God  and  the  love  of  souls.  They  uphold 
high  scholarship,  and  insist  upon  as  extensive 
a  curriculum  as  the  conditions  will  permit. 
And  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  general  policy 
of  the  Church  in  the  establishment  of  these 
academies  and  boarding-schools,  they  spend 
their  days  and  nights  in  the  endeavor  to  send 
back  into  every  part  of  the  mountains  earnest 
and  scholarly  and  efficient  men  and  women  to 
share  with  others  their  acquisitions  in  educa- 
tion and  character. 

The  names  of  these  schools  should  become 
familiar  to  the  Church  they  represent  so  hon- 


126  THE    SOUTHERN 

orably  amid  the  mountains.  Were  a  patri- 
otic Presbyterian  to  make  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  academies 
of  Kentucky,  he  would  be  thankful  for  the 
courage  and  statesmanship  that  had  sought 
the  remotest  mountain  counties  of  western 
Kentucky  and  founded  there  stanch  acad- 
emies to  battle  for  the  younger  generation 
and  the  hope  of  a  better  day.  Nested  to- 
gether in  the  westernmost  extremity  of 
western  Kentucky  lie  the  three  sister  coun- 
ties of  Pike,  Floyd,  and  Martin.  There  in 
Pike  we  see  the  Pikeville  Collegiate  Insti- 
tute silhouetted  against  its  mountain  back- 
ground; it  is  already  approved  by  its  results, 
and  is  destined  to  become  the  base  for  a 
thoroughly  articulated  system  of  schools.  In 
Floyd,  amid  the  lofty  hills,  stands  Preston- 
burg  Academy,  young  and  promising,  the 
ward  of  the  Third  Church  of  Pittsburg  and 
its  Kentuckian  pastor,  Dr.  McEwan;  while  in 
gaseous  Martin  County  is  Inez  Academy  on 
Rockhouse  Creek.  It  is  just  getting  ready 
for  its  mission.  The  Warren  Memorial 
Church  of  Louisville  is  working  for  the 
mountains  through  its  agency. 

Just  west  of  this  trio  of  counties  lies  a 
quintette  of  counties,  some  of  which  have 
made  martial  but  discordant  music  within 
the  memory  of  men.  The  five  counties  are 


MOUNTAINEERS  127 

Harlan,  Leslie,  Perry,  Clay,  and  Owsley. 
Those  patriots  who  shook  their  heads  hope- 
lessly as  they  spoke  of  the 

rCign  °f  thC  feud  Sh°uld 
visit  Harlan  Academy  to- 
day and  see  what  improved  conditions  in 
every  respect  Christian  education  can  help 
forward  in  a  few  short  years.  And  in  Har- 
lan's  next  neighbor,  Leslie  County,  is  Hyden 
Academy,  the  protege  of  the  Central  Church 
of  New  York.  And  Hyden  boasts  itself  upon 
a  revolution  that  in  eleven  short  years  has 
wrought  wonders  in  civil  order  and  prosperity 
in  a  place  sixty  miles  removed  from  a  rail- 
way. And  in  Perry  County  is  Buckhorn 
Academy;  Nature  and  science  surely  meet 
here,  if  a  name  signifies  anything!  Across 
in  Manchester,  county  seat  of  far-famed 
Clay,  stands  the  Edward  Hubbard  Memorial 
Academy,  contributing  a  large  influence  to  the 
rapid  revolutionizing  of  public  sentiment, 
and  to  the  development  of  young  manhood 
and  young  womanhood  that  will  be  the  pride 
of  New  Clay.  And  a  little  farther  on,  in 
Owsley  County,  is  Booneville  Academy,  an- 
other enterprise  fostered  by  the  Third 
Church  of  Pittsburg. 

The  hill  country  on  the  western  edge  of  the 
Kentucky  mountains  also  has  its  three  acad- 
emies posted  for  the  welfare  of  the  people. 


128  THE    SOUTHERN 

In  Rockcastle  County  is  the  Mount  Vernon 
Collegiate  Institute,  a  mission  of  the  Brown 

Memorial  Church  of  Balti- 
And  Another  Trio  ., 

more;  three  counties  west- 
ward, in  A dair,  is  the  Columbia  Male  and 
Female  High  School;  and  in  Cumberland 
County,  on  the  Cumberland  River,  and  on 
the  Cumberland  plateau,  a  few  miles  from 
the  Tennessee  border,  is  Alexander  College, 
built  a  generation  ago  through  the  efforts  of 
Rev.  James  P.  McMillan,  D.D.,  and  nobly 
serving  the  present  generation. 

On  the  Cumberland  plateau,  which  forms 
the    western    edge    of    "  God's  country " — 

East  Tennessee — two  Pres- 
East  Tennessee  b  terian  academies  have 
Academies  ,  ,  .  ,  ,  , 

rendered  invaluable  service. 

Grassy  Cove  Academy  nestles  in  a  unique  and 
picturesque  valley,  once  the  bed  of  a  large 
and  deep  mountain  lake,  that  suddenly  ap- 
pears sunken  in  the  great  Cumberland 
plateau.  And  its  sons  and  daughters  at- 
tribute much  of  the  substantial  life  and  en- 
ergetic movement  in  that  lively  little  county 
to  the  modest  school  in  the  Cove.  And  up  the 
Cincinnati  Southern,  in  Scott  County,  is 
Huntsville  Academy,  where  at  comparatively 
small  outlay  an  immense  benefit  has  been 
meted  out  in  the  education  of  the  young 
people,  in  the  renovation  of  the  public 


a 


B 
is 


MOUNTAINEERS  129 

schools,  and  in  the  establishment  and  multi- 
plication of  Sabbath-schools.  One  of  the 
leading  men  of  Huntsville,  after  enumerating 
the  many  ways  in  which  the  county  had  made 
remarkable  progress,  bore  this  voluntary  testi- 
mony: "  Your  Board  is  not  entitled  to  all  of 
the  credit  for  these  improvements,  but  your 
church  and  school  should  be  given  more 
credit  than  all  of  the  other  agencies  known 
to  me." 

Then  near  Knoxville,  in  the  center  of  the 
broad  and  undulating  valley  of  East  Tennes- 
see, is  New  Market  Academy,  the  pride  of 
Union  Presbytery  and  the  lowland  Presby- 
terians. It  is  a  standing  proof  of  the  fact 
that  what  is  good  for  the  mountains,  is  good 
for  the  staid  and  substantial  valley.  Within 
sight  of  Cumberland  Gap  is  Hancock  County 
with  its  Sneedville  Academy,  young  but  al- 
ready helpful  to  as  choice  youth  as  the  hill 
country  ever  brought  forth.  And  eastward 
in  Carter  County,  under  the  Unakas,  and 
upon  the  beautiful  Watauga,  where  the  heroes 
of  Kings  Mountain  rendezvoused,  is  the 
Harold  McCormick  Academy  of  Elizabeth- 
ton,  one  of  the  many  tokens  of  the  interest 
that  Mrs.  Nettie  F.  McCormick  has  taken  in 
the  Appalachians.  To  make  a  worthy  round- 
ing out  of  the  academic  establishments  of 
East  Tennessee,  Unicoi  County,  though 


130  THE    SOUTHERN 

tucked  away  under  the  shadows  of  great  bor- 
derland mountains,  has  its  two  academies,  the 
John  Dwight  School  of  Erwin,  and  the  Flag 
Pond  School  beyond  the  Nolachucky.  Both 
these  academies  are  provided  with  school 
buildings  and  teachers'  homes,  and  with  an 
outlook  upward  and  around  about  that  does 
the  teachers'  hearts  good  every  day  in  the 
year. 

Our   Church  has  been  strongly  drawn  to 

the  Old  North  State.     Mt.   Mitchell's  lofty 

summit    looks    down    upon 

six  of  our  boarding-schools 

North  State  ,         ,      .         ,.  *       ,.  , 

and  academies,  all  of  which 

are  within  one  hundred  miles  of  the  moun- 
tain. 

At  the  state  line  as  one  goes  up  the  French 
Broad  River  from  Tennessee  is  Hot  Springs 

and   its    Borland    Institute. 
Borland  Institute     ^     T»I     j      i.ui-t-jj.i_ 
Dr.  Borland  established  the 

Institute  in  his  old  age — and  it  stands  as  a 
providential  approval  of  his  life  of  service 
to  his  Master.  A  plant  valued  at  thirty 
thousand  dollars  provides  seventy  girls  with 
their  boarding  department,  and  thirty  boys 
with  their  farm  and  home,  and  two  hundred 
more  with  day-school  privileges.  The  beauti- 
ful church  edifice  itself  must  exert  much 
silent  influence  upon  the  congregation  that 
gathers  within  its  walls. 


MOUNTAINEERS  131 

A  few  miles  farther  up  the  river,  Mar- 
shall   clings    to   the    mountainside,    and    ex- 
pands   almost    horizontally. 
Marshall  Academy  Thg     academy    has     deyel_ 

oped  from  work  established  in  1894,  and  has 
modestly  and  efficiently  contributed  much  to 
the  well-being  of  Madison  County.  Over  two 
hundred  students  make  good  use  of  the  eight- 
thousand-dollar  plant. 

In  Burnsville,  the  county  seat  of  Yancey 
County,  is  the  Stanley  McCormick  Academy, 
fostered    by    Mrs.    McCor- 

mick>      Ab°Ut    f°rty    th°U" 
sand    dollars    has    provided 

excellent  buildings  and  equipment.  It  was 
ably  directed  in  its  formative  years  by  Prof. 
C.  R.  Hubbard.  Now  under  the  management 
of  a  large  and  efficient  corps  of  teachers  the 
academy  is  most  worthily  justifying  its  right 
to  the  enviable  vantage  ground  it  occupies. 

At  Concord,  in  the  Piedmont  region,  out 
beyond    Asheville    and    the    mountains,    the 

Laura    Sunderland    Memo- 
Laura  Sunderland     .  ,   0  ,      ,    .     ,.  ,„,,. 

rial  ochool  is  fulfilling  its 

beneficent  mission.  Its  property  is  valued  at 
about  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  but  the 
value  of  its  service  is  beyond  estimate  in  legal 
tender.  The  seventy-five  bright  girls,  gath- 
ered from  farm  and  mountain  and  mill,  and 
trained  for  the  service  of  the  Kingdom,  de- 


132  THE    SOUTHERN 

serve  a  chapter  rather  than  this  brief  men- 
tion. Did  the  limits  of  this  booklet  permit, 
an  entire  chapter  might  justly  be  devoted  to 
each  one  of  these  schools  of  our  Church. 

At  Asheville  stand  the  three  schools  that 
form,  as  it  were,  the  apex  of  the  Presbyterian 
Home  Mission  school  system  of  the  Appa- 
lachians, as  representing  the  largest  invest- 
ment in  money  and  workers  and  effort.  As 
representative  of  the  entire  school  work  they 
will  be  spoken  of  in  a  separate  chapter. 

When  the  course  of  study  has  been  com- 
pleted, the  graduates  of  these  schools  go 

forth    to    live    their    future 
Where  the  liyeg  and  to  exert  thdr  f  u. 

Graduate!  Go  .    ,,  ~ 

ture    influence.      Some    are 

already  at  home,  and  take  up  their  share  of 
the  responsibility  for  continued  advance  in  the 
community  that  is  the  home  of  the  school. 
Others  return  to  their  homes  in  the  country 
to  improve  them,  and  to  introduce  a  new  life 
into  the  neighborhood.  They  become  leaders 
in  public  sentiment  and  public  progress. 
They  hurry  up  the  evolution  of  the  hill  coun- 
try. In  some  counties  almost  all  the  public 
school  teachers  are  former  students  of  our 
boarding-schools  or  academies.  They  also 
wake  up  the  Sabbath-schools. 

The  danger  of  conservatism  is  petrifaction. 
Galdos  tells  of  little  Celipin  Centeno  as 


MOUNTAINEERS  133 

setting  out  from  the  mines  of  Socartes,  with 
his  little  budget  in  his  hands,  in  search  of 
the  place  where  he  could  become  "  a  useful 
man";  and  what  Galdos  says  of  Celipin 
might  be  said  of  many  an  Appalachian  youth 
trained  in  these  schools :  "  Geology  has  lost 
a  stone,  and  society  has  gained  a  man."  Some 
of  the  young  people  push  on,  with  help, 
through  the  colleges  of  the  synods,  and  then 
go  out  to  serve  the  Church  at  home  and 
abroad;  the  number  of  such  recruits  is  con- 
siderable, and  is  increasing.  The  purpose  of 
the  establishment  of  the  schools  is  abundantly 
justified. 


134  THE    SOUTHERN 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE     ASHEVILLE     SCHOOLS 

ASHEVILLE  is  an  ideal  site  for  any  school, 
and  especially  for  such  as  are  intended  to 
contribute  to  the  solution  of 
the  Appalachian  problem. 
Picturesque  America  can  hardly  boast  a  pan- 
orama of  more  impressive  grandeur  and  sur- 
passing beauty  than  is  that  presented  from 
any  eminence  in  this  queen  city  of  the  "  land 
of  the  sky."  The  romantic  Swannanoa  and 
the  French  Broad  unite  their  waters  near  the 
city  and  contribute  the  only  addition  that  the 
lover  of  natural  beauty  could  ask  to  complete 
the  perfection  of  this  North  Carolinian  land- 
scape. Just  above  this  junction  of  the  rivers, 
the  estate  of  Biltmore  lies  in  all  that  unique 
attractiveness  which  nature  and  art  have 
given  it.  A  climate  that  is  believed  in  by  the 
physicians  of  all  the  states  attracts  every 
year  tens  of  thousands  of  rest-seekers  and 
health-seekers  to  Asheville,  to  the  Sapphire 
country,  and  to  all  the  mountain  region 
within  easy  access  of  the  capital  city  of 
western  North  Carolina. 


MOUNTAINEERS  135 

In  such  a  noble  natural  setting  the  Pres- 
byterian   Church   has    located    three   schools 

of  magnificent  achievement 

Rich  Investment  j  ,     j.j 

and     even     more     splendid 

promise.  The  money  invested  in  the  perma- 
nent plants  of  these  schools  amounts  to  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars ;  but 
so  economically  has  the  investment  been 
made,  and  so  wisely  administered,  that  it  is 
equal  in  efficiency  to  what  twice  that  amount 
would  be  in  many  places.  Nearly  seven  hun- 
dred young  people  were  gathered  in  the  three 
schools  during  the  year  1905. 

The  plan  of  the  schools  prevents  any  un- 
necessary   duplication    of   work.      The   very 

names    suggest    the    differ- 
Threefold  Object      ence    ^    ^    gcope    of    ^ 

institutions.  The  Home  Industrial  gives  a 
home  industrial  training  to  girls  from  the 
first  grade  to  the  ninth.  The  Normal  and 
Collegiate  Institute  affords  to  girls  and  young 
women  a  four  years'  course  of  normal  train- 
ing. The  Farm  School  provides  for  boys  and 
young  men  instruction  in  the  common  school 
branches,  and  in  industrial  training  in  the 
shop  and  on  the  farm.  Thus  is  a  wisely  co- 
ordinated and  yet  differentiated  work  carried 
on  in  three  institutions  with  the  economy  and 
efficiency  of  a  single  institution.  Let  us  look 
at  the  work  of  these  schools  somewhat  in 


136  THE    SOUTHERN 

detail,  as  being  typical  of  the  work  of  the 
other  worthy  schools  that  have  been  merely 
mentioned  in  the  foregoing  chapters. 

The    Home   Industrial   School 

Several  lines  of  providential  guidance  led 
to  the  establishment  of  the  Home  Industrial 

School.     In    1870,  Rev.   L. 
The  Hand  of  M      peage     &nd     his     wif 

Providence  ,     ,  ,      ,.,     ,       .,    . 

broken    in   health    by   their 

labors  at  the  Five  Points  Mission  in  New 
York  City,  went  to  Asheville  in  search  of 
health.  Childless  themselves,  they  were  giv- 
ing their  lives  to  the  service  of  childhood ;  and 
so  they  naturally  became  deeply  interested  in 
the  children  of  the  mountains.  Business  re- 
verses frustrated  the  purpose  they  formed  to 
found  a  school  for  these  children,  and  they 
were  compelled  to  open  their  home  to  board- 
ers. In  their  Christian  home  many  visitors, 
including  the  Rev.  Thomas  Lawrence,  D.D., 
and  Miss  Elizabeth  Boyd,  afterwards  the 
wife  of  the  Rev.  D.  Stuart  Dodge,  D.D., 
became  interested  in  their  efforts  in  be- 
half of  the  mountain  children,  some  of 
whom  Mrs.  Pease  was  training  as  helpers  in 
the  home. 

Miss  Boyd,  while  spending  the  winter  of 
1884-  in  South  Carolina,  became  deeply  inter- 


MOUNTAINEERS  137 

ested  in  the  poor  children  near  her,  and 
gathered  some  of  them  about  her  and  gave 
them  lessons  in  kitchen-garden,  and  at  the 
same  time  instructed  them  in  the  saving 
truths  of  the  Scriptures.  At  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Woman's  Executive  Commit- 
tee in  Saratoga  in  May  of  the  same  year,  she 
made  a  fervent  appeal  for  the  opening  of 
mission  schools  for  the  neglected  children  of 
the  more  destitute  parts  of  the  South. 

The  appeal  could  not  be  granted  until  the 
General  Assembly  should  enlarge  the  scope 
of  the  committee's  work  and  until  funds 
should  be  provided.  Later  on  these  hin- 
drances were  removed,  and  the  Board  of 
Home  Missions  upon  the  authorization  of  a 
liberal  friend  took  steps  for  the  purchase  of 
property.  By  an  opportune  and  providential 
telegram  sent  the  Board  by  Dr.  Lawrence,  a 
location  in  the  mountains  was  chosen.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Pease  transferred  to  the  Home 
Board  their  property,  including  their  home 
and  thirty-three  acres  in  the  suburbs  of  Ashe- 
ville,  reserving  for  themselves  an  annuity  for 
their  lifetime.  Thus  the  location  of  the  pro- 
jected school  was  most  happily  decided,  and 
a  property  valued  at  thirty  thousand  dollars 
was  secured. 

Miss  Florence  Stephenson,  of  Butler,  Pa., 
assistant  principal  in  one  of  the  public 


138  THE    SOUTHERN 

schools  of  Pittsburg,  was  appointed  principal 
of  the  new  school,  and  that  position  she  has 

filled  to  the  present  with  un- 
The  Devotion  of  j  efficiency  and  suc- 

the  Founders  -of  OL.  j  r 

cess.      Before    the    end    of 

the  year  four  other  teachers  were  assisting 
her;  while  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pease  for  six  years 
devoted  their  entire  time  to  the  interests  of 
the  school.  The  Home  Industrial  was  opened 
in  the  fall  of  1887,  and  was  soon  filled  with 
seventy  boarders  and  forty  day-pupils.  The 
building  has  grown  by  successive  additions 
until  it  now  accommodates  one  hundred  and 
ten  boarding-pupils  and  their  eight  teachers. 
Were  the  building  three  times  its  present 
size,  it  could  be  filled  immediately  by  eager 
pupils. 

The  school   is   a   great  home  in  which   a 
healthful,  sane,  and  earnest  Christian  life  is 

lived.  The  family  life  is 
The  Scope  of  permeated  with  the  spirit  of 

daily  worship,  Bible  study, 
honest  toil,  and  unselfish  service  that  fill  the 
busy  round  of  each  day's  duties.  The  teachers 
have  turned  aside  from  higher  salaries  else- 
where to  give  themselves  to  this  work,  and 
they  put  their  lives  into  their  holy  task.  The 
making  of  wholesome  and  Christian  home- 
makers  is  their  constant  aim.  The  school  is 
an  industrial  home.  All  the  girls,  as  daugh- 


MOUNTAINEERS  139 

ters  in  a  home,  engage  in  the  household 
duties  under  direction  of  the  household  moth- 
ers. All  are  trained  in  kitchen-garden  and 
cooking  classes,  in  sewing,  dressmaking,  and 
in  other  domestic  arts.  The  nine  common- 
school  grades  are  provided,  the  three  lowest 
grades  reciting  in  the  practice  school  of  the 
Normal  and  Collegiate  Institute. 

Scholarships   of  seventy-five   dollars   each 

sustain  the  pupils,  most  of  whom  come  from 

the    remote    mountain    dis- 

The  Support  of       trictg     Last  year  $2,400  was 

the  School  .,    .  -,    ,         , 

paid    m    tuition   and    board 

by  such  as  were  able  to  contribute  toward 
their  own  support;  while  the  entire  cost  of 
the  school,  including  the  annuity,  was  $11,- 
962.  The  broad  Appalachians  and  the  honor 
of  the  Saviour  and  of  his  Church  receive  rich 
returns  from  this  investment  in  the  making 
of  new  homes  for  the  mountains. 

There  is  imperative  need  of  an  additional 

building  for  girls  under  twelve  years  of  age. 

Necessity    and   mercy   have 

The  Annex  that      already   admitted  from  ten 

to  twenty  under  the  twelve- 
year  age  limit,  and  the  pressure  of  appli- 
cants is  becoming  stronger  every  year. 
Roman  Catholics  count  those  early  years  the 
choicest  for  the  making  of  lasting  religious 
impressions;  and  Presbyterians  cannot  afford 


140  THE    SOUTHERN 

to  fail  to  provide  for  such  mountain  girls  of 
that  age  as  for  various  reasons  have  no  access 
to  the  day-schools.  Many  motherless  chil- 
dren are  pleading  for  entrance,  and  the 
fathers  of  some  of  them  can  pay  their  way. 
A  house  that  will  accommodate  fifty  girls  can 
be  erected  for  from  $8,000  to  $10,000. 
Surely  the  Church  will  supply  this  logical 
and  richly  deserved  extension  of  one  of  its 
most  signally  successful  schools. 

The   Farm   School 

In  1893  plans  that  had  been  maturing  for 
at  least  two  years  were  realized  in  the  in- 
ception  of  a   work   for  the 
Its  Development      ,  ,  c 

boys    and    young    men    or 

western  North  Carolina  that  should  be  simi- 
lar to  that  for  girls  already  so  well  estab- 
lished in  the  Home  Industrial  School.  The 
Home  Board  purchased  a  farm  of  four  hun- 
dred and  twenty  acres  lying  on  the  beautiful 
Swannanoa,  about  nine  miles  from  Asheville. 
The  school  was  opened  in  November,  1894, 
with  three  instructors  and  twenty-five  boys. 
Since  that  time  the  school  has  steadily  ex- 
panded, until  in  1905  it  reported  property  to 
the  value  of  nearly  seventy  thousand  dollars; 
total  expenditures  of  the  year,  $16,000;  and 
receipts  from  tuition,  $2,767 ;  while  the  value 


MOUNTAINEERS  141 

of  farm  and  garden  produce  was  estimated  at 
three  thousand  dollars. 

The  Farm  School  is  first  of  all  a  "  school  " 
in  which  the  boys  are  thoroughly  instructed 
in  the  various  grades  of  the 
Its  Design  common  schools.  Then,  as 

the  word  "  farm  "  suggests,  it  is  an  industrial 
school,  planned  to  train  its  students  especially 
as  farmers,  but  also  to  some  extent  as  car- 
penters. The  boys  do  most  of  the  house- 
keeping also,  a  fact  that  ought  largely  to 
enhance  their  value  in  the  matrimonial  mar- 
ket. The  third  design  of  the  school  is  not 
mentioned  in  its  name,  but  it  is  all-pervasive 
in  its  life.  That  design  is  to  make  good 
Christians  as  well  as  good  farmers.  A  Sab- 
bath well  spent,  followed  by  a  week  of 
practical  Christianity,  including  the  reverent 
and  daily  study  of  the  Bible,  results  in  an 
overmastering  Christian  sentiment  that,  for 
example,  has  been  manifested  during  the  past 
six  years  in  very  many  ripening  characters 
and  in  two  hundred  and  forty-five  professions 
of  faith  in  Christ. 

The  threefold  design  of  the  school  is  hap- 
pily realized.  A  steady  supply  of  sturdy 

lads  and  manly  young  men 
Its  Rich  Fruitage  .  .  .  f  J.,  6A 

is  sent  out  into  the  Appa- 
lachians with  the  deep  impress  of  their 
manual,  intellectual,  and  religious  training 


142  THE    SOUTHERN 

manifest  in  all  their  being.  Some  go  on  to 
college,  and  will  enter  the  ministry  and  other 
professions;  some  become  teachers,  or  enter 
business  life;  but,  as  was  hoped,  many  more 
return  to  their  homes  to  practice  and  pass 
on  to  others  the  new  ideas  and  ideals  with 
which  their  life  in  the  Farm  School  has  en- 
dowed them.  Faithfully  did  the  superintend- 
ents, Prof.  Samuel  Jeffrey  and  the  Rev.  G.  S. 
Baskervill,  and  their  consecrated  coworkers 
administer  the  trust  for  the  Church ;  and  now 
under  J.  P.  Roger,  M.D.,  and  his  colleagues, 
it  deserves  liberal  support  at  the  hands  of 
the  Church  it  so  admirably  serves. 


The   Normal   and    Collegiate   Institute 

"  In  the  founding  of  this  school  the  Wom- 
an's Board  have  placed  the  keystone  in  the 
arch  of  their  work  in  the 
mountains  of  the  South." 
In  18Q3  there  was  estab- 
lished on  the  property  given  by  Mr.  Pease 
to  the  Home  Board  an  additional  school,  for 
which  the  growing  educational  work  in  the 
Appalachians  had  prepared  the  way  and  also 
created  the  necessity.  There  were  already 
many  mission  schools,  and  there  would  be 
many  more.  These  and  the  public  schools 


MOUNTAINEERS  143 

were  calling  for  teachers  to  the  manner  born. 
The  Church  saw  the  opportunity  to  do  a  most 
efficient  service  to  the  mountains  and  the  ad- 
jacent regions  by  providing  teachers  thor- 
oughly prepared  to  direct  these  schools.  And 
so  by  the  benevolence  of  philanthropic 
friends  the  keystone  in  the  Appalachian 
Home  Mission  school  system  was  put  into 
place;  and  the  Normal  and  Collegiate  Insti- 
tute was  that  keystone. 

Just  across  the  lawn  from  the  Home  In- 
dustrial, an  extensive  four-story  building  was 

erected,  which  in  1905  pro- 

The  Plant  •  j   j         t.     i  i_          << 

vided  a  school  home  for  two 

hundred  and  forty-three  boarding  students 
and  ninety-four  day-pupils.  At  the  entrance 
to  the  grounds  stand  the  manse  and  the 
Elizabeth  Boyd  Memorial  Chapel.  The 
chapel  was  erected  by  Dr.  Dodge,  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions,  as  a 
memorial  to  his  wife.  In  it  gather  for  the 
Sabbath  worship  the  girls  of  both  schools  and 
residents  of  the  neighborhood.  The  church 
organization,  bearing  the  name  Oakland 
Heights,  is  self-supporting.  In  such  a  com- 
modious plant,  then,  the  Normal  and  Col- 
legiate Institute  has  enjoyed  its  thirteen 
years  of  uninterrupted  prosperity  under  the 
principalship  of  Dr.  Lawrence. 

The  girls  of  the  Normal  come  from  the 


144  THE    SOUTHERN 

South    Atlantic   states   and   from   the   states 
adjacent    on    the    west.      They    range    from 
fourteen  to  twenty-two  years 
of  age.     They  are  principally 
— though  not  exclusively — from  country  and 
village  homes,  and  are  a  very  earnest  and  sub- 
stantial body  of  young  people. 

It  requires  a  faculty  of  sixteen  teachers 
and  officers  to  direct  the  manifold  activities 

of     the     institution.       The 
Its  Teachers  ,    ,.          -    .,       r       ,.      , 

ladies  of    the   faculty  have 

been  selected  from  the  best  normal  and 
training  schools  of  the  country  and  are  ex- 
perts in  their  various  lines  of  work.  The 
result  is  an  admirably  conducted  institution. 
There  are  five  departments  of  study:  (1) 
Normal,  providing  as  good  a  training  for 

teaching   as    the    state    can 
Courses  of  Study      ^^  &nd  induding  fl  prac. 

tice  model  school  of  three  grades;  (2)  com- 
mercial, including  typewriting,  stenography, 
bookkeeping,  and  English;  (3)  domestic 
art,  including  dressmaking  and  millinery; 
(4)  domestic  science,  affording  a  training  in 
the  utilities  —  sewing,  cooking,  and  house- 
keeping; (5)  music,  both  vocal  and  instru- 
mental. 

Dr.  Lawrence  sums  it  all  up  as  follows: 
"  The  Institute  provides  a  systematic  edu- 
cation— the  whole  girl  goes  to  school:  hand, 


c 

C 


MOUNTAINEERS  145 

head,  and  heart;  she  has  to  do,  in  turn,  with 
every  part  of  the  work  of  the  school  home; 

the  work  schedule  changes 
toys  em  i  every  six  weeks ;  and  when 

Education"  ..  *  .,  , 

the    pupil   leaves    us,    aside 

from  her  thorough  training,  whether  as 
teacher,  stenographer,  or  dressmaker,  if  she 
does  not  know  how  to  care  for  a  home 
from  cellar  to  garret,  it  is  her  own  fault. 
Our  girls  cook  the  food,  care  for  the  dining- 
room,  chapel,  classrooms,  their  own  dormi- 
tories, and  the  laundry,  largely  make  their 
own  clothing,  and  take  care  of  the  sick,  ex- 
cept where  the  case  is  extreme." 

The  religious  character  of  the  school  per- 
meates every  part  of  it.     The  chapel  exer- 
cises,  the   systematic   Bible 
Religious  Life         studyj     ^     young     ladies> 

meetings,  and  the  personal  efforts  of  the 
administration  have  all  been  made  so  suc- 
cessfully to  bend  toward  the  development  of 
Christian  character  that  no  one  has  yet 
graduated  from  the  normal  department  who 
was  not  a  professing  Christian. 

The  girls  that  have  graduated  at  the  Nor- 
mal have  justified  the  hopes  and  plans   of 
its    founders.      They    have 
gone    into    home    life    and 
business  pursuits  and  school  work,  and  have 
everywhere  rendered  skilled  service  and  at- 


146  THE    SOUTHERN 

tained  to  great  usefulness  in  many  ways. 
The  state  legislature  of  North  Carolina, 
county  superintendents  of  public  instruction, 
judges,  and  other  prominent  citizens  have  at 
various  times  manifested  the  high  esteem  in 
which  they  have  held  the  Institute,  and  the 
confidence  they  have  had  in  its  graduates. 
The  alumnae  of  the  school  are  everywhere  in 
demand,  and  they  prove  that  they  merit  their 
popularity  by  the  schools  they  conduct,  the 
Sabbath-schools  they  establish,  the  church 
work  they  do,  and  even  by  the  civil  order  and 
public  welfare  they  promote.  Right  worthily 
do  their  lives  reflect  credit  upon  the  "  Key- 
stone school  "  that  they  have  loved  so  well. 


MOUNTAINEERS  147 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE     APPALACHIAN     PROMISE 

WE  have  seen  that  the  development  of 
trade  and  the  perfecting  of  the  public-school 
system  may  be  confidently  expected,  within 
a  reasonable  period,  to  make  their  valuable 
contributions  to  the  enlightening  of  the 
mountains.  There  remains,  then,  only  the 
contribution  that  the  Christian  Church  is  to 
make.  The  establishment  of  mission  and  in- 
dustrial schools  and  academies,  and  of  a 
church  by  every  school,  and  of  a  Sabbath- 
school  in  every  church,  will  be  the  mightiest 
service  that  the  Presbyterian  Church  can 
render  our  kindred  of  the  mountains.  When 
the  ground  is  thus  thoroughly  covered  by  our 
Church  and  her  sister  Churches,  our  third  of 
the  problem  will  soon  be  satisfactorily  solved. 
Why  so  confident  a  statement?  Because 
there  is  no  peculiar  problem  in  those  sec- 
tions where  the  Presby- 
A  Preventive  .  /-,i  -,  j  •  -i 

terian    Church    and   similar 

Churches  have  occupied  the 
field  and  conducted  continuous  work;  and  the 


148  THE    SOUTHERN 

presumption  is  that  the  things  for  which  we 
stand — thrift,  schools,  and  an  educated  min- 
istry— will  remedy  what  they  would  have 
prevented,  had  they  been  present. 

Our  greatest  ground  of  hope  lies  in  the 
stock  with  which  we  have  to  do,  and  the 
marvelous  rehabilitating  power  that  it  pos- 
sesses. 

The  original  mountain  stock  was  made  up, 
as  we  have  seen,  very  largely  of  Presbyterian 

Scotchmen  and  Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterian  &nd      nonconformist     E 

Antecedents  ,.  ,          ,     ,       .     ,    ,    , 

hsh,  and  also  included  some 

Lutheran  Germans,  and  a  few  French  Hugue- 
nots. What  better  human  pedigree  could 
men  boast  than  is  that  which  the  mountain 
Americans  of  to-day  can  claim?  Even  where 
the  name  "  Presbyterian  "  has  almost  been 
forgotten — to  our  shame  be  it  said — by  these 
Macs  of  the  mountains,  the  visitor  will  be 
invited  to  eat  "  Presbyterian  bread,"  a  kind 
of  corn  bread  that  is  good  while  cold,  and 
that  was  prepared  by  the  foremothers  on  Sat- 
urday, so  that  they  might  not  have  to  work  on 
the  Sabbath  day.  Occasionally  some  one  will 
bring  out  for  exhibition  an  heirloom  copy  of 
a  "  Confession  of  Faith  "  that  had  crossed  the 
sea  from  Londonderry.  Recently  the  writer 
met  a  mountain  preacher  whose  grandfather 
was  a  Presbyterian  elder  in  a  cove  where  now 


MOUNTAINEERS  149 

Presbyterianism  is  only  a  tradition.  It  was 
gratifying  to  hear  the  brother  emphasize 
most  earnestly  the  duty  of  old-fashioned 
Sabbath-keeping.  And  this  preacher  is  a 
representative  of  numberless  similar  in- 
stances of  latent  Presbyterianism  with  which 
the  workers  in  the  Appalachians  are  con- 
stantly meeting.  Small  wonder  is  it,  in  view 
of  such  facts,  that  many  mountaineers  when 
given  the  opportunity  gravitate  rapidly  to- 
ward Presbyterianism. 

Now,   this  mountain   stock   is   capable   of 
very  rapid  rehabilitation  where  favorable  con- 
ditions    obtain.        It     took 
Rapid     e  a-  several  generations  to  retro- 

bilitation  ,      {~  .    ..  .  , 

grade,   but  it  requires  only 

one  to  come  back  to  the  ancient  patrimony. 

For  twenty  years  the  writer  has  been 
watching  this  miracle  take  place,  as  the  moun- 
tain boys  have  entered  the  junior  preparatory 
year  at  Maryville  College  and  have  struggled 
manfully  onward  until,  at  the  end  of  seven 
long  years,  some  of  the  elect  have  left  col- 
lege the  peers  of  any  and  able  to  hold  their 
own  in  the  best  professional  and  technical 
schools  of  our  land;  while  those  that  have 
spent  only  two  or  three  years  in  school  have 
gone  back  home  transformed  in  thought  and 
purpose,  and  destined  to  transform  many 
others.  A  hundred  times  has  he  thought 


150  THE    SOUTHERN 

of  the  advertiser's  "  Before  taking "  and 
"  After  taking." 

The  boys  and  girls  of  the  mountains  are 
naturally  quick,  and  have  the  strength  of  the 
hills  in  their  hearts  and  brains.  It  is  the  con- 
sensus of  opinion  among  those  that  have 
taught  them  that  they  are,  on  the  average, 
quicker  and  more  alert  than  are  the  ordinary 
"  flatwoods  "  country  students.  One  telling 
suffices.  Fox  touches  off  this  quality  well: 

'  Don't  little  boys  down  in  the  mountains 
ever  say  "  sir  "  to  their  elders  ?  '  inquired  the 
Major. 

'  No,'  said  Chad ;  '  no,  sir,'  he  added 
gravely." 

Their  ambition  is  easily  aroused,  and 
they  will  undergo  great  hardships  to  realize 

its  object.     They  assimilate 
Ready  Assim-          nfiw  ideag  and  fld     t  them_ 

ilation  , 

selves  to  new  surroundings 

with  a  celerity  and  an  ease  that  are  akin  to 
magic.  In  Asheville,  Knoxville,  Chattanooga, 
and  other  towns,  there  are  many  well- 
groomed  and  prosperous  business  men  that 
were  born  in  cabin  homes.  And  they  would 
feel  at  home  in  the  White  House,  after  a 
week  or  so.  The  writer  used  to  be  anxious 
about  the  students  from  the  mountains  when 
they  entered  college,  lest  they  might  feel  ill 
at  ease,  or  invite  chaffing  by  manifest  embar- 


MOUNTAINEERS  151 

rassment,  or  lest  they  might  become  home- 
sick. But  long  since  he  found  that  his 
concern  was  unnecessary.  They  are  abun- 
dantly able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  to 
conceal  their  embarrassment  when  they  ex- 
perience any;  and,  when  they  decide  to  con- 
quer their  sometimes  almost  overmastering 
homesickness,  speedily  to  make  themselves 
as  much  at  home  in  the  college  as  if  it  were 
their  old  cabin  home. 

The  fact  is  that  the  young  man  of  the  far 
mountain,  when  separated  from  his  dwarfing 
environment,  and  aroused  by  ambition,  is  a 
most  attractive  character.  The  discerning 
soul  is  constrained  to  love  him. 

He  has  drunk  in  the  mountain  air  and 
water  and  scenery  until  he  has  partaken  of 
their  strong  qualities. 

He  has  strong  nerves  and  a  strong  body. 
He  can  hold  out  his  old  home-made  twenty- 
five-pound  rifle,  and  with 
Strength  of  Body  unflinching  nerve  duplicate 

the  best  work  of  the  best  shot  of  the  day. 
Whether  he  belong  to  the  immediate  stock  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Jackson,  Davy 
Crockett,  and  Sam  Houston  or  not,  he  belongs 
to  their  stalwart  people,  and  looks  it.  The 
average  height  and  weight  of  the  southern 
Appalachian  soldiers  of  the  Union,  as  re- 
corded by  the  recruiting  officers,  considerably 


152  THE    SOUTHERN 

exceeded  that  of  the  soldiers  enlisted  in  any 
other  section  of  the  country. 

The  young  mountaineer  has  a  strong  and 

keen  mind.     A  close  observer,  like  Cassius, 

"  He    looks    quite    through 

the  deeds  of  men."     When 
Keen  Mind 

you  think  him  dreaming,  his 

photographic  and  phonographic  observation 
is  recording  all  that  is  taking  place  about  him. 
The  self-complacent  visitors  from  civilization 
make  an  egregious  blunder  in  their  hasty  in- 
ference from  his  taciturnity  and  seeming 
stolidity  that  the  young  mountaineer  is  intel- 
lectually their  inferior.  In  native  ability  that 
youth  is  fit  to  stand  before  princes. 

He  has  a  resolute  and  dauntless  will. 
What  he  wishes  to  do,  he  will  do  without 
asking  license.  His  will, 
in  the  absence  of  worthier 
objects  of  concern,  may  have  been  exercised 
in  matters  of  trifling  import,  and  thus  may 
have  seemed  to  be  mere  personal  caprice  or 
stubbornness;  but  give  it  nobler  objects  to 
elicit  its  powers,  and  it  will  reveal  those  noble 
qualities  of  high  purpose  and  indomitable 
perseverance  that  have  filled  the  world  with 
heroes  and  the  world's  arena  with  victors. 
The  young  mountaineer  is  no  invertebrate, 
but,  if  he  thinks  the  occasion  demands  it,  will 
stand  alone  against  the  whole  world.  He  is 


MOUNTAINEERS  153 

made  of  good  staying  stuff  of  the  kind  that 
God  and  men  like  to  employ  when  great 
deeds  must  be  done. 

This    confidence    is    not    self-assertive    or 
combative    or    egotistical,    but   is    matter-of- 
fact  and  unconscious.     The 
Supreme  youth  has  by  intuition  what 

Self-confidence         *.,  .,  ,. 

others   secure  as  the  result 

of  training  and  experience.  He  takes  it  for 
granted  that  what  others  do  or  have  done, 
he  can  do.  This  quality,  which  is  his  by 
nature,  is  of  untold  advantage  to  him.  It 
fills  his  efforts  with  the  world-conquering 
characteristic  of  dogged  persistence.  When 
at  last  success  crowns  his  efforts,  he  is  sat- 
isfied, but  not  surprised. 

He  sees  no  earthly  reason  why,  if  he  is 

called  out  of  the  mountains  for  any  reason, 

he  should  not  be  the  peer 

^       °  of  any  man,   "  Lowland  or 

Independence  T,.  , , *     ,      f  „ 

Highland,     far     or    near. 

Such  a  Scotch  heritage  he  could  never  lose 
in  the  freedom  of  the  hills.  His  independ- 
ence is  a  passion.  In  the  Civil  War  the 
mountaineer  made  a  fierce  fighter,  and  was 
an  ideal  soldier  in  all  respects  save  one — 
he  would  not  remove  his  cap  to  any  martinet, 
any  more  than  would  William  Penn,  in  the 
older  day,  to  the  King  of  England.  He  does 
not  have  to  be  educated  to  self-respect.  He 


154  THE    SOUTHERN 

has  this  quality  by  inheritance.  He  resents 
the  arrogance  of  wealth  or  position,  and 
would  rather  die  than  submit  to  any  form 
of  tyranny.  Sometimes  it  is  even  hard  for 
him  to  yield  due  respect  to  the  authority  of 
the  civil  law  when  it  comes  in  conflict  with 
his  individualism. 

The    young   man   of   the   mountain,   when 

once  educated,  is  so  confident  of  himself,  and 

so  positive  of  opinion,  that 

Initiative  for  he  ig  admirabl     adapted  to 

Leadership  ,      ,          i  *v  v. 

be  a   leader    of   those  who 

may  not  be  so  strong  as  himself.  True,  the 
individualism  of  the  mountains  renders  it 
difficult  to  find  anywhere  among  them  any 
considerable  following  for  anybody;  but  no 
section  of  our  land  could  provide  more  men 
adapted  by  nature  for  leadership  than  could 
the  mountains  were  there  only  those  that 
would  be  content  to  follow  any  brother  man. 
The  mountaineer  lives  "  the  simple  life  " 
in  close  touch  with  nature  in  its  varied  mani- 
festations. From  nature, 
A  Simple  Faith  ^  more  from  ^ 

Scriptures,  and  perhaps  principally  from 
strong  heredity,  he  has  acquired  an  absolute 
faith  in  a  personal,  omnipotent,  omniscient, 
and  omnipresent  God,  who  has  to  do  with 
him  in  "  all  the  good  and  ill  that  checker 
life."  He  believes  in  the  substitutionary 


MOUNTAINEERS  155 

sacrifice  of  Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of  the 
world.  He  has  no  doubt  that  Jesus  will 
"come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead"; 
while  "  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  and  the  life  everlasting  " 
are  unquestioned  tenets  of  his  creed. 

His    faith    is    not    merely    intellectual    or 
theoretical  but  it  takes   strong  hold   of  his 

thinking  and,  in  many  cases, 
A  Strong  Relig-      of    hig 


lous  Nature  „,  ,  . 

1  he   southern   mountaineers 

are  grave  by  nature.  The  few  native  bal- 
lads that  they  have  are,  like  those  of  most 
mountain  dwellers,  somewhat  weird  and  are 
written  in  the  minor  key.  The  native  char- 
acter is  a  serious  one.  Nothing  interests  a 
mountain  audience  so  much  as  does  a  debate 
on  some  question  of  Biblical  interpretation  or 
doctrinal  dispute;  and  where  the  Spirit  of 
God  is  moving  upon  hearts,  nothing  holds  the 
attention  more  fixedly  than  does  a  discussion 
of  some  point  of  Christian  duty.  The  one 
book  that  is  read  in  the  Appalachians  more 
than  are  all  others  combined  is  the  Bible  ;  and 
many  readers  have  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  its  contents. 

As  has  been  said  of  the  race  of  Shem,  it 
may  be  affirmed  of  the  mountain  race,  "  It 
has  a  genius  for  religion."  Too  often,  as 
everywhere  else,  this  religious  nature  is 


156  THE    SOUTHERN 

dwarfed  and  misshapen  by  environment  and 
natural  depravity;  but  though  stunted  and 
deformed,  it  often,  by  many  a  token  that  is 
recognized  by  the  quick  vision  of  sympathetic 
lovers  of  souls,  proclaims  its  latent  strength 
and  future  possibilities.  There  is  always 
something  responsive  to  appeal  to,  in  the  man 
of  the  mountains. 

All  that  our  mountain  brethren  ask  for  at 

our  hands  is  "  a  chance." 
Will  Save  the  Gfve  the  choice  and  noble 

Appalachians  .  ..  .,          .,      . 

spirits  among  them  the  in- 
tellectual and  religious  training  that  they 
desire,  and  they  will  take  care  of  their  native 
hills.  Already  the  elect  youths  trained  in  the 
various  Presbyterian  institutions  are  in  charge 
of  many  of  the  schools  that  have  been  estab- 
lished in  the  mountains;  and  as  the  work 
progresses,  the  number  of  volunteers  will  far 
exceed  the  demand. 

The  policy  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
is  the  same  at  home  and  abroad;  that  is,  to 
train  up  workers  in  every  land  and  region  to 
carry  forward  the  work  of  evangelization 
among  those  to  whom  they  are  attached  by  ties 
of  family  and  patriotism.  Such  laborers 
know  the  people  and  are  known  of  them,  and 
so  meet  with  such  a  reception  as  can  never  be 
extended  to  one  of  alien  birth,  however  kindly 
his  heart  and  faithful  his  service. 


MOUNTAINEERS  157 

Besides   this   filial   service  that  they   will 
render  their  own  noble  section,  the  southern 

mountaineers  have  evidently 
Kept  for  the  b         proyidentially  held  in 

Master's  Use  y       „      , 

reserve  by  the  great  Head 

of  the  Church  to  be  sent  in  his  "  fullness  of 
time  "  into  the  battle  for  righteousness  that 
is  waged  for  the  entire  nation.  Surely  men 
of  strong  body  and  intellect  and  will,  en- 
dowed also  with  self-confidence,  the  spirit  of 
independence,  and  capacity  for  leadership, 
and  yet  honoring  Heaven  with  a  simple  faith, 
and  favored  of  Heaven  with  a  strong  re- 
ligious nature,  must  be  destined  for  conspicu- 
ous service  not  merely  in  their  native  Appa- 
lachians, but  beyond  in  the  great  world-field 
wherever  men  of  such  caliber  and  character 
are  needed  by  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The 
miracle  of  the  waters  may  be  repeated.  Out 
of  the  mountain  reservoirs  flow  ten  thousand 
streams  that  unite  to  bless  the  lowlands  with 
mighty  rivers,  and  to  provide  refreshment 
and  wealth  for  town  and  county.  Out  of  the 
mountain  reservoirs  of  reserve  strength  and 
virility  there  may  at  no  distant  day  proceed 
streams  of  living  waters  to  make  glad  not 
merely  plain  and  valley,  but  even  the  City  of 
our  God. 

Every  morning,  as  the  writer  rises  for  his 
day's  work,  he  looks  out  of  his  bedroom  win- 


158  THE    SOUTHERN 

dow,  across  the  tops  of  Tennessee  forests, 
upon  the  glory  of  God  as  it  is  spread  out  in 

Chilhowee's    proud    length, 

and  heaped  up  in  the  tow- 
ering piles  of  Old  Thunderhead  and  Greg- 
ory's Bald.  And  they  are  never  the  same 
Smokies  that  they  were  the  day  before. 
Throughout  the  year,  kaleidoscoping  every 
day  and  shifting  every  hour,  a  new  panorama 
lies  in  majesty  before  delighted  eyes.  The 
geologist  tells  of  the  mighty  metamorphosis 
of  the  Appalachians  that  has  taken  place  since 
the  mountains  were  thrown  up  twelve  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  primeval  plain.  The 
daily  and  annual  metamorphosis  of  light  and 
shade,  of  brown  and  purple,  of  vegetation  and 
snow,  proclaims  the  infinity  of  the  Builder  of 
the  mountains. 

As   the   delighted  spectator  drinks  in  the 
sublime  inspiration  of  the  scene,  he  almost 

forgets  the  problem  of  the 
The  Appalach-  Appalachians>  and  thinks 
lan  Providence  .  ,  .  ., 

rather    of    their    providence 

and  promise.  God  rolled  those  mountains  up 
for  the  good  of  America;  and  our  American 
Congress  is  recognizing  this  fact  in  planning 
for  the  vast  Appalachian  Forest  Preserve,  to 
be  a  blessing  in  all  the  future  to  all  the 
cis-M ississippian  country.  So  has  God  stored 
away  in  this  great  mountain  reservoir  of 


MOUNTAINEERS  159 

humanity  four  millions  of  sturdy  race  to  be 
a  source  of  refreshment  and  strength  to  the 
nation  in  trying  days  to  come,  the  days  of 
struggle  to  preserve  our  civil  and  religious 
institutions  unimpaired  in  the  Armageddon 
with  which  the  hordes  of  foreign  immigrants 
are  threatening  our  nation. 

Yes,  the  mighty  Appalachians  are  a  prom- 
ise as  well  as  a  problem.     The  problem  will 

be  solved,  and  when  solved 
The  Appalach-        wm  fee  &  meang  t<j  ^  g()lu_ 

lan  Promise  ,        ,  ,        . , 

tion    of    other    and    wider 

problems — a  pou  sto  on  which  the  Christian 
Archimedes  of  the  future  will  lift  up  the 
plans  of  God  for  America's  welfare  toward 
their  fuller  consummation.  A  day  will  come 
when  the  Christian  philosopher  and  historian 
will  tell  not  of  the  APPALACHIAN  PROBLEM, 
but  of  the  APPALACHIAN  PROVIDENCE. 


160  THE    SOUTHERN 

APPENDIX 

SCHOOL    WORK 

THE  following  tables  will  convey  some  idea 
of  the  extensive  Presbyterian  school  system 
of  two  of  the  synods  of  the  mountains.  The 
table  of  the  Kentucky  schools  has  been  pro- 
vided by  the  Rev.  Donald  McDonald,  D.D., 
synodical  superintendent  of  the  Synod  of 
Kentucky;  the  Tennessee  table,  by  the 
Synod's  Permanent  Committee  on  Schools, 
but  revised  to  date  by  the  Rev.  Calvin  A. 
Duncan,  D.D.,  synodical  superintendent  of 
Tennessee. 

Some  of  the  schools  are  controlled  and  con- 
ducted by  the  local  presbyteries  and  synods ; 
some  by  boards  of  trustees,  in  which  the 
majority  of  the  members  are  required  to  be 
Presbyterians;  many  are  conducted  by  the 
Woman's  Board  of  Home  Missions;  while  a 
number  are  directed  by  the  co-operation  of 
two  of  the  agencies  that  have  been  mentioned. 

Pamphlets  descriptive  of  such  of  the 
schools  as  are  under  the  care  of  the  Woman's 
Board  of  Home  Missions  may  be  had  upon 
application  at  the  Board's  rooms  in  New  York 
City.  Information  regarding  any  of  the 


MOUNTAINEERS 


161 


schools  listed  in  the  tables  may  be  secured 
by  correspondence  with  the  synodical  super- 
intendents of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 


KENTUCKY. 

No.  of 
Teachers, 
1905. 

Value  of 
Property, 
1905. 

*a'» 
«" 

Colleges. 

*t  Central  University,  embrac-1 
ing:    (a)  Centre  College;     (b) 
Preparatory  School,  Danville; 
(c)  College  of  Law,  Danville; 
(d)  College  of  Medicine,  Louis-  • 
ville;  (e)  College  of  Dentistry, 
Louisville;  (f)  Lee's  Collegiate 
Institute,  Jackson  ;   (g)  Hardin 
Collegiate  Institute. 
*  Caldwell  College  

66 

14 

$675,000 
60000 

1,395 
215 

Alexander  College   

5 

13000 

145 

Academies. 

4 

6000 

146 

Columbia  Male  and  Female  Acad- 

5 

8,000 

116 

Ed  ward  Hubbard  Memorial  

3 

6,000 

101 

Prestonsburg  Academy  

2 

4,000 

65 

Booneville  Academy  

2 

3,000 

90 

*  Princeton  Collegiate  Institute  
*  Hayswood  Academy  

5 
5 

50,000 
10,000 

85 
80 

Home  Mission  Boarding-schools. 
Brown  Memorial  Academy  

6 

14,000 

109 

5 

8,000 

220 

4 

8,000 

240 

Pikeville  Collegiate  Institute  
Witherspoon  Memorial  (Buckhorn) 

6 
3 

27,000 
12,000 
12,000 

230 
245 

85 

Total        

141 

$937,000 

3,566 

*  Not  in  the  mountain  section. 

t  Controlled  jointly  by  the  Northern  and  Southern  Synods 
of  Kentucky. 


102 


THE    SOUTHERN 


TKNNXSSEE. 

No.  of 
Teachers, 
1906. 

o£. 

IF 

££- 

Colleges. 
Maryville,  Tenn  

25 

$457  000 

604 

Oreeneville  and  Tusculum,  Tenn.  . 
Washington,  Tenn.  

14 
11 

18,648 

66  500 

232 

1547 

Academiet. 
Burnsv  ille.  N.  C  

7 

88000 

200 

New  Market,  Tenn  

4 

4  912 

147 

Home  Mistion  Schools. 
a—  Boarding-schools. 
Home  Industrial  N.  C..  .. 

g 

54  050 

i.in 

Normal  and  Collegiate,  N.  C.     . 

15 

]•>•'  |V  ||| 

837 

Dorland  Institute,  N.  C  

10 

31  1  i  N'K  1 

336 

Farm  School,  N.  C  

16 

67500 

201 

Laura  Sunderland,  N.  C  

6 

23600 

75 

6—  Day-schools. 
Allanstand,  N.  C... 

4 

1  630 

66 

Big  Laurel,  N.  C  

2 

3  800 

70 

Splllcorn,  N.  C  

1 

635 

35 

Gahagans,  N.  C  

2 

1  100 

38 

Little  Pine  Creek,  N.  C  

2 

2700 

65 

Walnut  Springs,  N.  C  

2 

1  600 

55 

Walnut  Run  N.  C  

2 

*1  500 

92 

Marshall.  N.  C.              

4 

7  800 

201 

Paint  Rock,  N.  C     

2 

'100 

44 

Paint  Creek,  N.  C  

1 

Big  Pine  N.  C  

1 

1  800 

87 

Shelton  Laurel.  N.  C  

2 

1,200 

75 

Upper  Shelton  Laurel,  N.  C  

1 

1,000 

75 

Revere  N.  C  

2 

1,500 

48 

Brittain's  Cove  N.  C  

1 

1,000 

Jupiter  N.  C  

2 

2.500 

90 

Bank's  Creek  N.  C       

2 

1.800 

96 

Jack's  Creek  N  C          ...        •  «  • 

2 

1,500 

38 

Low  Oap  (Lower  Pensacola),  N.  C. 
Rlceville  N.  C  

2 

1 

1,800 
2,000 

78 

Rice  Cove,  N.  C  

1 

600 

20 

Patterson  Mills  N.  C  

2 

49 

Juniper,  Tenn..  

2 

1,600 

100 

MOUNTAINEERS 


168 


TENNESSEE.—  Continued. 

No.  of 
Teachers, 
1905. 

?£ 

IT 

°5o 

l£S 
f-<£-i 

b  —  Day-schools.  —  Continued. 
Flag  Pond  Term...           

4 

3000 

106 

Rocky  Fork,  Tenn  

1 

1,200 

60 

Erwin,  Tenn  

4 

3,500 

70 

Elizabethton,  Tenn  

2 

6,000 

85 

Vardy,  Tenn  

2 

1,000 

65 

Jewett.  Tenn  

2 

1,250 

73 

Sneedville,  Tenn      

3 

4,000 

135 

Huntsville,  Tenn  

4 

3,000 

175 

Grassy  Cove,  Tenn  

3 

2,500 

115 

Crab  Orchard,  Tenn    

2 

1,300 

108 

Ozone,  Tenn  

2 

1,500 

85 

Total.                                 .  .. 

188 

$997  620 

4912 

In  the  Synod  of  West  Virginia  especial 
emphasis  has  been  put  upon  the  work  of 
Bible-readers.  At  Acme,  Brush  Creek,  Clear 
Creek,  Dry  Creek,  Jarrold's  Valley,  and 
Racine,  the  Bible-readers  carry  on  their 
beneficent  work.  They  conduct  sixteen  Sab- 
bath-schools in  which  are  gathered  980  pu- 
pils. At  Dry  Creek  a  medical  mission  is  also 
accomplishing  a  great  deal  of  good  among 
the  people.  At  Lawson  there  is  a  boarding- 
and  day-school  for  girls,  with  an  attendance 
of:  twenty-seven  boarding-pupils  and  twelve 
day-pupils. 


164  SOUTHERN  MOUNTAINEERS 


WORK    OF    SABBATH-SCHOOL    BOARD 

The  following  table  sums  up  the  work  done 
in  the  Appalachians  from  18Q2  to  1904  by 
the  Sabbath-school  Missionary  Department  of 
the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication  and 
Sabbath-school  Work: 


Sabbath- 
schools 
Organized. 

Sabbath- 
school 
Members. 

Churches 
Organized. 

Families 
Visited. 

Professed 
Conver- 
sions. 

West  Virginia  
Kentucky    

888 
377 

20,526 

20,404 

19 
12 

40,100 
32325 

800 
715 

Tennessee  

261 

14.453 

21 

39,770 

719 

Total  

1,024 

r,r  .'X! 

62 

112294 

2243 

University  of  California 

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